There is very little known about the fate of Stalin's notorious Gulag after his death. Jeffrey S. Hardy makes use of an impressive body of documents to show us how Stalin's camps transformed. This book is not just about crime and punishment, or the changing penal system in the USSR; it is an insight into Soviet life in general, in ... Read morewhich state violence always played too big of a role.
Oleg Khlevniuk, National Research University Higher School of Economics Based on in-depth archival research that would rival almost any book, The Gulag after Stalin draws on a breadth of historical thinking and a scholarly imagination that will allow the book to make highly original and significant contributions to a number of different spheres of scholarly inquiry. Jeffrey S. Hardy's in-depth and nuanced exploration of policy making in the Khrushchev years casts light on Soviet history, the history of the Gulag, the history of forced labor, the history of punishment and penal systems, and even broader interdisciplinary inquiries into penology and the politics of punishment and incarceration.
Steven A. Barnes, George Mason University, author of Death and Redemption: The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society The Gulag After Stalin is an illuminating, meticulously researched book that will reinvigorate the discussion on the very nature of the Soviet system.
Nanci Adler, NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies/University of Amsterdam In his compelling study, Jeffrey Hardy argues that penal reform functioned as a central philosophy in the recalibration and reorganization of the Soviet prison system.... This brief review cannot do justice to Hardy's painstaking research that produced this fascinating, informative, and nuanced study. Specialists and armchair enthusiasts alike will gain valuable insights. Students in seminars on the Gulag and in general Soviet history courses at the undergraduate and graduate level will profit from this work.... He achieves that which is often hard to come by these days: a rigorous, fact-based analysis of an important historical phenomenon situated firmly within its own context in order to understand the Gulag reform process not as we would have liked it to be, but how it actually was.
Cynthia A. Ruder
American Historical Review
As a convincing reappraisal of the Gulag and, by extension, the character of Soviet authoritarianism, this book is valuable for deepening our understanding of the Soviet system, particularly in the Khrushchev era. Given its global context, it should also be of use to scholars interested in modern penal systems and notions of criminality and rehabilitation.
Slavic Review
This fine work is centered on the period of Khrushchev's Thaw and explores the transformation (not without continuities) of the Gulag in these years.... [It is] a valuable contribution and is grounded in real expertise in Soviet history and penal history more generally.
Journal of Modern History
This clearly written, well-organized, and amply documented monograph is a detailed overview of the Soviet penal system from 1953 to 1964 in both its theory and practice.... [T]his comprehensive monograph is recommended for both scholars of the period as well as students. It has a cross disciplinary appeal, reaching to historians, social scientists, as well as literary scholars.
The Russian Review
[This book] is particularly good at gauging the extent of the Stalinist legacy into the latter half of the 20th century and the changing attitudes to (Soviet) crime and incarceration.... Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
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