The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia

A New York Times Notable Book of 2007

"A tremendous achievement."--The Sunday Times (London)

The Whisperers is a triumphant act of recovery. In this powerful work of history, Orlando Figes chronicles the private history of family life during the violent and repressive reign of Josef Stalin. Drawing on a vast collection of interviews and archives, The Whisperers re-creates the anguish of family members turned against one another--of the paranoia, alienation, and treachery that poisoned private life in Russia for generations. A panoramic portrait of a society in which everyone spoke in whispers, The Whisperers is "rigorously compassionate. . . . A humbling monument to the evil and endurance of Russia's Soviet past and, implicitly, a guide to its present" (The Economist).

Price Range:$7.84 to $16.00 | 6 stores
Product Rating:

28 Reviews
Info:
Set Price Alert Save to Wish List

Write a product review

ProductReviews

1-10 out of 28

From: Amazon
Posted: Jan-26-2009

Required Reading

Stunning, meticulous, profoundly disturbing, and an invaluable resource to assure mankind is reminded of its evil capacities

Read full review | Report as inappropriate

From: Amazon
Posted: Jan-21-2009

Extraordinary and painful hisory

On college campuses across the United States, there are thousands of professors who consider themselves Marxists, socialists or some derivation thereof. Ask them about the misery their professed political beliefs caused in the 20th Century and they will become irritated, perhaps claim that...

Read full review | Report as inappropriate

From: Amazon
Posted: Jan-19-2009

Masterpiece..

This incredible book completely absorbed me and is perhaps Figes' masterpiece. He handles the subject matter beautifully, the photographs adding to the sense of historical depth throughout as, family by family, Figes constructs a grand narrative of the times. It is also emotionally complex, the...

Read full review | Report as inappropriate

From: Amazon
Posted: Jan-04-2009

It cannot get more riveting that this

if you have read it all about Stalin times. If you don't understand how an entire population became schizophrenic this is a sure bet. Learning how to whisper your deepest thoughts became a survival skill in Stalin's USSR. There is no equivalent to this work as of today. It is unique and is not...

Read full review | Report as inappropriate

From: Amazon
Posted: Dec-06-2008

the inhuman power of the lie

There are many history books that have tried to analyze the sheer madness of Stalin's Russia, but the immensity of that madness has overwhelmed many historians and their readers. Anyone with an interest in the topic will be rewarded upon tackling this massive treatment from Orlando Figes, who...

Read full review | Report as inappropriate

From: Amazon
Posted: Oct-17-2008

History as seen across the kitchen table

The Whisperers is history as seen across the kitchen table through a standard, 50 mm lens. Whereas much of the history of the Stalin era is writ large, swimming in the Gulag's sea of death and destruction, defined by war, purges and diplomacy, here Figes writes about Russian life on a smaller,...

Read full review | Report as inappropriate

From: Amazon
Posted: Oct-05-2008

Brilliant

This is one the great history books of our times. Based on hundreds of family archives and interviews with the last survivors of the Stalinist regime, it opens up the hidden private lives of ordinary people, exploring family relationships and the interior lives of individuals. Brilliantly...

Read full review | Report as inappropriate

From: Amazon
Posted: Oct-05-2008

Superb and chilling

Over the last decade or so, a flurry of excellent works about Stalin and his times have appeared on bookstore shelves. But even among this stellar company, The Whisperers stands out. It draws on oral histories, interviews and privately-written manuscripts -- the raw material that is the first...

Read full review | Report as inappropriate

From: Amazon
Posted: Oct-04-2008

A moving and important book

This must be the most important book on the Soviet Union since The Gulag Archipelago, in 1973. It is based on hundreds of family archives and thousands of interviews with the survivors of the Stalin Terror which Figes and his team of researchers have spent years collecting from homes throughout...

Read full review | Report as inappropriate

From: Amazon
Posted: Oct-04-2008

GOOD JOURNALISM, BAD HISTORY

This book cannot be classified as history.To write something based mostly on a myriad of interviews does not qualify it under the category of scientific research.It distorts and minimizes the historical framework of those horrible Stalin times by ignoring the overall historical dimension. .A...

Read full review | Report as inappropriate

Write a product review

1 2 3 Next