This is a major non-fiction book, one of those which I believe everybody SHOULD read once in their life. The reasons why I believe it to be so good and important are the following:
1. It is extremely well researched. From the first to the last page you can immediately see that Anne Applebaum worked extremely hard to gather the information she delivers by searching old Soviet archives but also all kind of published memories of Gulag survivors. Anne Applebaum is not a very prolific author as she published until now only three books (one in 1996, one in 2003 and one in 2012), because she clearly gives herself time to work her documentation and the subject extensively and comprehensively. And it shows!
2. It is full of concrete information, data and real stories. Author gathered a lot during her research - and then she gave it back to her readers. At 624 densely printed pages in hardcover edition this is a huge book - but there is no filler here. This book gives to the reader comprehensive information, real data and hard evidence, not some weak@ss rhetorics and soul searching.
3. It is well organized and well written. "Gulag" is a history and therefore it follows the timeline of slavery in Soviet Union and the concentration camps system which was created to manage it. This clear structure, combined with very skillful writing, make this book much easier to read that one could expect. Once again, if Anne Applebaum publishes her books in a low frequency way, it is clearly because she polishes the final product until it reaches the top level of quality. And it shows!
4. It leaves a great deal of place to the memories of survivors. One of surprising things I discovered in this book was the great number of testimonies of gulag survivors which were somehow send out of USSR and published in English already in the 20s and 30s, so the full truth about the deep nature of Soviet system and the fact that slavery was re-established by Soviet government for some categories of population was already known even before the Great Terror in 1937-38 - but nobody in Western powers (and especially amongst intelligentsia) cared or gave a damn and therefore those words of truth failed to make any impact!! Well, here at least author makes the victims voices heard - much too late, but at least it is better than nothing.
5. It pays respect to all those who resisted, rebelled or tried to escape from communist slavery. Most of those real stories ended badly, very badly indeed - but this is just one more reason why those events should be remembered.
6. It is merciless in describing the horrific sufferings of slaves and mind-blowing dimensions of death toll of Soviet slavery - BUT it is also moderate in tone, carefully avoiding exaggeration. And this is a precious asset.
7. It delivers information which was previously unknown or at least unpublished in English. Amongst the most important new facts is the description of Beria's reforms, which he introduced immediately after Stalin's death. It was for me a complete revelation that this monstrous man, whom Stalin called "Our Himmler" and who was known amongst other things for abducting and raping women for fun, turned in 1953 into a reformer even more radical than Gorbatchev in the 80s! And it shows Khrushchev and Malenkov coup against Beria in a whole different light...
8. It offers a very interesting closing chapter, which I will let you discover mostly by yourself, but which includes also one very powerful remark: the Gulag still EXISTS TODAY! Not in Russia anymore, thanks God, but in China (the "laogai") and especially in North Korea, which actually can be described as a whole country turned into one giant concentration camp... And sadly, it is as true today, in August 2013 as it was in 2003 when this book was published.
Even if I already read long time ago "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and "A world apart" by Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski (two best books about Gulag, published in English respectively in 1973 and 1951) I still learned a LOT from this book, which is more structured and more precise than the work of Solzhenitsyn and more comprehensive than Herling-Grudzinski memories. Anne Applebaum also had access to more data than those both authors - and therefore she was in a much better position to write a real history about how Lenin and Trotsky re-established the slavery immediately after the Revolution, how Stalin expanded the official slavery during all his reign and how his successors slowly let it wither and die, as its economic inefficiency was shown with total clarity.
Bottom line, this is a powerful, extremely precious book, to buy, read, keep and pass to your children. I can not wish you to enjoy it, because it describes an abominable nightmare and is heartbreaking - but reading it will mark you forever and make you think. A lot.
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