The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression

The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression
by Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panne, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin

The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression
List Price: $51.50
Our Price: $46.23
You Save: $5.27 (10%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $28.00 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Andrzej Paczkowski, Jean-Louis Margolin, Jean-Louis Panne, Karel Bartosek, Nicolas Werth
Editor: Mark Kramer
Translator: Jonathan Murphy
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-10-15
ISBN: 0674076087
Number of pages: 912
Publisher: Harvard University Press

Summary of The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression

Already famous throughout Europe, this international bestseller plumbs recently opened archives in the former Soviet bloc to reveal the actual, practical accomplishments of Communism around the world: terror, torture, famine, mass deportations, and massacres. Astonishing in the sheer detail it amasses, the book is the first comprehensive attempt to catalogue and analyze the crimes of Communism over seventy years.

"Revolutions, like trees, must be judged by their fruit," Ignazio Silone wrote, and this is the standard the authors apply to the Communist experience?in the China of "the Great Helmsman," Kim Il Sung's Korea, Vietnam under "Uncle Ho" and Cuba under Castro, Ethiopia under Mengistu, Angola under Neto, and Afghanistan under Najibullah. The authors, all distinguished scholars based in Europe, document Communist crimes against humanity, but also crimes against national and universal culture, from Stalin's destruction of hundreds of churches in Moscow to Ceausescu's leveling of the historic heart of Bucharest to the widescale devastation visited on Chinese culture by Mao's Red Guards.

As the death toll mounts?as many as 25 million in the former Soviet Union, 65 million in China, 1.7 million in Cambodia, and on and on?the authors systematically show how and why, wherever the millenarian ideology of Communism was established, it quickly led to crime, terror, and repression. An extraordinary accounting, this book amply documents the unparalleled position and significance of Communism in the hierarchy of violence that is the history of the twentieth century.


When it was first published in France in 1997, Le livre noir du Communisme touched off a storm of controversy that continues to rage today. Even some of his contributors shied away from chief editor Stéphane Courtois's conclusion that Communism, in all its many forms, was morally no better than Nazism; the two totalitarian systems, Courtois argued, were far better at killing than at governing, as the world learned to its sorrow.

Communism did kill, Courtois and his fellow historians demonstrate, with ruthless efficiency: 25 million in Russia during the Bolshevik and Stalinist eras, perhaps 65 million in China under the eyes of Mao Zedong, 2 million in Cambodia, millions more Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America--an astonishingly high toll of victims. This freely expressed penchant for homicide, Courtois maintains, was no accident, but an integral trait of a philosophy, and a practical politics, that promised to erase class distinctions by erasing classes and the living humans that populated them. Courtois and his contributors document Communism's crimes in numbing detail, moving from country to country, revolution to revolution. The figures they offer will likely provoke argument, if not among cliometricians then among the ideologically inclined. So, too, will Courtois's suggestion that those who hold Lenin, Trotsky, and Ho Chi Minh in anything other than contempt are dupes, witting or not, of a murderous school of thought--one that, while in retreat around the world, still has many adherents. A thought-provoking work of history and social criticism, The Black Book of Communism fully merits the broadest possible readership and discussion. --Gregory McNamee

Business & Investing Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Business & Investing Books
Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions ImageMoney for Nothing: One Man's Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions
by Edward Ugel
HarperBusiness; Published: 2007-09-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.46
Price in other shops: $24.95
You Can Do It! CD ImageYou Can Do It! CD
by Jonathan D. Pond
HarperAudio; Published: 2006-11-28; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $2.05
Price in other shops: $29.95
China's Megatrends: The 8 Pillars of a New Society ImageChina's Megatrends: The 8 Pillars of a New Society
by John Naisbitt, Doris Naisbitt
HarperBusiness; Published: 2010-01-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops: $27.99
The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity ImageThe Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity
by Richard Florida
Harper; Published: 2010-04-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.50
Price in other shops: $26.99
Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance ImageSuper Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
William Morrow; Published: 2009-10-20; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.61
Price in other shops: $29.99
Attitude is Everything Rev Ed: 10 Life-Changing Steps to Turning Attitude into Action ImageAttitude is Everything Rev Ed: 10 Life-Changing Steps to Turning Attitude into Action
by Keith Harrell
HarperBusiness; Published: 2005-05-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.31
Price in other shops: $16.99
Get Back in the Box: How Being Great at What You Do Is Great for Business ImageGet Back in the Box: How Being Great at What You Do Is Great for Business
by Douglas Rushkoff
HarperBusiness; Published: 2007-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.55
Price in other shops: $12.95
Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders ImageMarket Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders
by Jack D. Schwager
Perennial (HarperCollins); Published: 1990-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.44
The Truth About Money 3rd Edition ImageThe Truth About Money 3rd Edition
by Ric Edelman
HarperBusiness; Published: 2003-12-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.31
Price in other shops: $19.99
J.K. Lasser's Taxes Made Easy for Your Home-Based Business ImageJ.K. Lasser's Taxes Made Easy for Your Home-Based Business
by Gary W. Carter
Macmillan General Reference; Published: 1999-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops: $15.95
Similar Books and other products
In Defense of Faith: The Judeo-Christian Idea and the Struggle for Humanity ImageIn Defense of Faith: The Judeo-Christian Idea and the Struggle for Humanity
by David Brog
Encounter Books; Published: 2010-07-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.13
Price in other shops: $25.95
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 ImageThey Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
by Milton Mayer
University of Chicago Press; Published: 1966-05-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $26.27
Price in other shops: $27.50
The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson ImageThe Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson
by David Barton
Thomas Nelson; Published: 2012-04-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.63
Price in other shops: $22.99
Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him ImageExposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him
by Humberto Fontova
Sentinel Trade; Published: 2008-08-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.87
Price in other shops: $15.00
Secret Weapon: How Economic Terrorism Brought Down the U.S. Stock Market and Why It can Happen Again ImageSecret Weapon: How Economic Terrorism Brought Down the U.S. Stock Market and Why It can Happen Again
by Kevin D. Freeman
Regnery Publishing; Published: 2012-01-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.77
Price in other shops: $27.95
Barack Obama and the Enemies Within ImageBarack Obama and the Enemies Within
by Trevor Loudon
Pacific Freedom Foundation; Published: 2011-10-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $25.16
Price in other shops: $34.95
Modern Times  Revised Edition: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties (Perennial Classics) ImageModern Times Revised Edition: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties (Perennial Classics)
by Paul Johnson
Harper Collins Publishers; Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2001-08-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.82
Price in other shops: $21.99
How Do You Kill 11 Million People?: Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think ImageHow Do You Kill 11 Million People?: Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think
by Andy Andrews
Thomas Nelson; Published: 2012-01-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.38
Price in other shops: $14.99
Being George Washington: The Indispensable Man, as You've Never Seen Him ImageBeing George Washington: The Indispensable Man, as You've Never Seen Him
by Glenn Beck
Threshold Editions; Published: 2011-11-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.01
Price in other shops: $26.00
From the Gulag to the Killing Fields: Personal Accounts of Political Violence and Repression in Communist States ImageFrom the Gulag to the Killing Fields: Personal Accounts of Political Violence and Repression in Communist States
Intercollegiate Studies Institute; Published: 2007-11-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.91
Price in other shops: $22.00
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories