Solzhenitsyn at his crazy best. An all-out attack on both the Soviet Union and the American youth of the 1970's, this more or less accurately reflects the real Solzhenitsyn: A self-centered angry man who attempts to take the sins of the world upon himself. Is this simply hubris, or the act of a boddhisattva in the making? You decide.

I had the opportunity of corresponding and meeting John Toland when I was a teenager and he was a remarkable man and a great writer. This is by far the best and most readable biography ever written on Hitler. Toland eschews, thankfully, the ridiculous psycho-babble which ruins many other major Hitler biographies.

Toland interviewed over 300 people close to Hitler: Tradul Junge, his secretary, Max Wunsche and Richard Schultze, his adjutants, Eva Braun's best friend and many others. He went to the source and his oral interviews constitute a tremendous historical resource.

Toland shows that Hitler was sexually normal, which is important since Hitler's supposed "deviant sexuality" is the lynchpin of many inferior books.

If you are to read one book about Adolf Hitler, make it this one. Nothing better has come down the pike in the 25 years since this books publication. For anyone interested in the history of the 20th century and World War II, this is a must read.

This book has to be one of the longest biographies ever written about a historical figure, but it is greatly the worth the effort expended to read it. John Toland is as good a historian as one will ever experience in the modern era. His books, to a one, are eminently readable. There is no historian who has the ability to make his subjects appear so lifelike, even to those who lived long after the events he writes about. By taking actual quotes and putting them into proper context, Toland marinates a genre long known for its aridity. Hitler the man was as complex a person on the political stage as any that preceded him, or have followed. Toland wades through Hitler's many complexities and seeming contradictions, and sheds light on what drove the Fuhrer's madness and his need to bring Europe (and later the world) to the brink of destruction. Toland offers plausibility to what drove Hitler to vilify and massacre the Jewish race in Europe, his goals of conquest, and his political system...areas in which historians have argued about for generations. We learn many things about Hitler's childhood and early adulthood, things which may shed some light on the future dictator's raison d'etre. From a disappointing childhood to dreams of being an artist and architect in Vienna, Austria, to his service in the German army during World War I, Hitler's dreams of a Germanic empire are mapped out every stage of the way. Toland's treatment of Hitler is fair, which is deeply hard to do, as the leader of Germany's Third Reich has caused much misery and destruction to people all over the world. His detachment makes Hitler appear much more scarier. It is hard to envision a man who would hold so true to his demonic visions over a span of twenty years, as Hitler did with his blueprint for domination of Europe and the Soviet Union. If you love twentieth-century history, particularly that of World War II, this book will satisfy your craving...and then some! I highly recommend all of Toland's books relating to the World War II era, particularly "The Last 100 Days" and "Infamy," which is about the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan on the U.S. on December 7, 1941, and the apparent subsequent cover-up by the government of its foreknowledge of the attack. Toland has also written a couple of fictional books that are not quite as good, but worth a look-see.

For anyone truly interested in finding and reading a definitive biography of Adolph Hitler, this is the book. This work is at once carefully documented and scholarly yet is also eminently readable and entertaining. Although there is no single volume that adequately explains the mysterious truth of Adolph Hitler the phenomenon, author John Toland delivers a most informative and exhaustively researched manuscript that does help us to understand Adolph Hitler the man. Toland spent several years researching this book with intensive interviews by surviving principals, and had access to a wide range of archival data and previously unpublished data and facts. The result is this magisterial work.

This is a book much like Toland's previous efforts in that it concentrates heavily on interviews with a literal torrent of people who had significant contact and knowledge of Hitler, from those who surrounded him in his rise to power, and who followed him into the ash and ruins of the embattled and besieged Third Reich. From his early days in Austria, to his school boy experiences and the discouraging failures of his early adulthood, through the heady but painful days as a volunteer in the front lines during World War I, Toland faithfully traces the rise and growth of this strange young man as he falls prey to a variety of venomous and unfortunate ideas and prejudices that mark him for life, and set the path to the kind of pathological aberrances that characterized his beliefs and behaviors from that point on.

Yet Toland makes a painful effort to be non-judgmental, and carefully presents all the facts as he can best determine them. This sometimes makes him err on the side of presenting personal and perhaps subjective opinions of others as fact, and this is typical of the Toland approach. While recognizing the dangers in presenting a lot of information into the record that might be inaccurate, twisted, or fanciful, he also wants us to hear the whole story from all of the participant's viewpoints so we can make our own informed judgment. In this sense Toland has a somewhat archaic belief in the historical reader's critical skills and to be well-enough formed as thinkers that he lets us judge for ourselves based on our interpretation of the 'facts' he presents rather than pre-digesting and coming to his own conclusions for us.

The busman's tour he takes through pre-war Germany, observing and describing the collection of rag-tag malcontents accompanying Hitler in his rise to power is quite interesting, as is his casual and matter-of-fact presentation of what is certainly a horrifying plethora of unbelievably provocative, ruthless and despicable acts on the parts of Hitler and the national Socialists. Yet this is also history at its best, unblinking, without comment or sentiment, and in-your-face. Much of what you will read you can find elsewhere, but nowhere else can you find it presented in the style and grace that Toland brings to the printed page. Simply stated, this is an outstanding piece of historical biography, and is also truly the standard against which all other, more recent works on Herr Hitler must be judged. Enjoy!

Can't say enough about this book. The subject's life is truly epic, spanning the Russian Revolution, World War II and the cold war. Thomas is right when he says that if you judge a writer by how he affects history, Solzhenitsyn is the greatest writer of our century. Plus his life is riveting. I loved this biography as much as any I've read since Robert Caro's wonderful LBJ Volume One. It's neat to have a novelist doing a biography too, as that seems to add a dimension here. Anyway, this is a brilliant work about a riveting subject. Can't say enough about it.

Tedious? Hardly! This critical biography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn is a brilliant and masterful piece of work. Solzhenitsyn's life and art, his epic and singular 20th century struggle, are persuasively treated with courage and truthfulness, and absolutely first-class literary accomplishment by novelist D. M. Thomas. Rarely have I encountered a more affecting piece of biographical literature! Solzhenitsyn's complexities seem to overload the century, and Thomas' patient and exceptionally intelligent narrative follows the thread of every turn with a novelist's master plan giving us, in the end, a scorching and beautiful appreciation of one of the rare writers of the 20th century. The book is a compendium of modern Russian history as much as anything else, and it serves its subject well in refusing to varnish either the man or his milieu; Soviet history, especially with respect to the jarred lives of most of its great artists, is already known as one of history's great tragedies, and Thomas traces Solzhenitsyn's life-long transformation from Soviet man to Russian icon with meticulous care, and with a miraculous understanding of the wayward chagrin of history not often articulated in the biographer's art. It's a massive book, yet because every word is made essential the narrative sails with genuine authority, and with a special beauty. This is an important book, I would say even a gifted book, as indeed befits the story of one of the authentic geniuses of modern literature. Highest recommendation without reservation.

If you're a student or fan of the Russian poet/novelist, then this book is a must-read. It is a superb critical biography of the man who is a giant in the literary world. The book enlightens the reader on Solzhenitsyn's life and politics, in his timeless as well as his contemporary significance.

As is the subject of being written about, this is a giant read - 559 pages in hardcover edition. This is not only a finely wrought literary biography but also a chronicle of twentieth-century Russian history.

Thomas was masterful in his research, ferreting out the myriad substance that forms the great Russian author/writer. A rich and rewarding read.

The entirety of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's short novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" takes place on a winter day in 1951 in a Siberian labor camp. The title character, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, has been a prisoner there for the past eight years and has two more to go, provided his sentence isn't extended even longer for no reason at all. As a Soviet soldier in World War II, he was imprisoned after being accused of spying for the Germans, but the novel is concerned more with his daily routine at the camp than with the politics behind his imprisonment.

Like anybody who's been in a highly structured and disciplined environment for a long time, Shukhov has developed his own individualized way of living day to day, bending the rules, avoiding punishment, and making life a little more bearable under the circumstances. Temperatures are commonly well below zero and the food is barely nutritional enough to keep the prisoners alive, but Shukhov has adapted well enough to know how to stay warm and make the most out of his meals. On this particular day, Shukhov's squad is forced to work construction; the novel describes how well Shukhov has honed his masonry skills as he expertly lays blocks and mortar building a wall for a building that will be used to hold future prisoners. Life at the camp has made him tough and independent; his only weakness is tobacco, for which he will beg, borrow, or steal.

The novel is based on Solzhenitsyn's own experience as a labor camp prisoner under Stalin's reign, and therefore it has a sincere, natural, brutal quality that not even someone like Orwell could imitate. More than anything, though, it portrays a man whose spirit is strong enough to triumph over the most extreme adversity. Case in point: There is another prisoner named Fetiukov, a sniveling weasel who cries about his harsh treatment. Shukhov observes that Fetuikov won't survive his imprisonment because he has the wrong attitude, which is why he can't help but feel a little sorry for the guy. This work is not only an indictment of the machinations of one of the twentieth century's most oppressive political systems; it also succeeds as a concise study in humanism.

A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is just that - a detailed description of one day in the gulag: the humiliation, the struggle to survive the elements, the mindless labour, the petty indignities one suffers and the mistrust one has for your fellow inmates. It is a quick read - it really only takes an hour or two, but the mental and psychological toll it takes is tremendous - especially after you realize that what you have read is only one day of many, one day of perhaps years that will be spent in an identical manner. After reading the book, you are literally drained emotionally; this above anything else makes it a masterpiece. There are no riveting characters, the plot is simply survival. Yet you empathize with Ivan and his fellows, as you empathize with Solzhenitsyn, who wrote this book largly based on personal experience. While I heartily recommend this book, I caution you not to read it if you are in a sunny disposition.

This book is an excellent example of the horrors of the Stalinist work camps (Gulag) that were in existence for most of Russia's modern history. Alexander Solzhenitsyn masterfully weaves descriptions of minute details, which, surprisingly, do not become tedious, but provide a better understanding of the task or action that the main character performs, with a universal theme that all people can relate to - survival. The title accurately describes the setting of the book; its entirety occurs in one day of the life of Ivan Denisovich, a prisoner. This may confuse some in that everyday tasks and unique events around this main character provoke flashbacks more often than not, and provide a complete picture of this man's life before he was imprisoned and since he has been serving his ten-year sentence. All in all, this book has a superior edge to most other books on this same subject in that its author, ALexander Solzhenitsyn, went through the same struggles as the main character of the novel, providing valuable insights, thoughts, and emotions that tie the novel together. An excellent read - one that I would recommend to anyone.

These two great stories are written in that harsh realistic style so charateristic of Solzhenitsyn's works. Both stories are important on two fronts: They are both allow for primary-source insight into what many Westerners have a skewed perception of (the poverty and oppression in Stalanist Russia), and secondly, both stories present severe criticsm of human nature in such grand metaphoric form as to allow them to penetrate the reader's own soul. The phrase "thought provoking," does these stories no justice, the parables are better described as painfully applicable.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn edited a powerful book that dramatically impacted my life in my thinking about how nations are transformed. While it was published in 1974 (renewed in 1981) and obviously is now out of print, for several of the essays, this book is worth searching for.

It should be noted that Solzhenitsyn is much more well thought of in the West than in Russia today. Even though he returned to live in Moscow, Russians generally feel he left the country to profit on his message, so he is not accorded the same kind of respect given to other dissidents that remained.

Still, there are powerful messages here. Personally, the most impacting was Solzhenitsyn's chapter "Repentance and the Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations" and Igor Shafarevich's "Separation or Reconciliation? The Nationalities Question..." In these chapters the authors suggest that national "repentance" is a key aspect to any kind meaningful social change. The search for sins begins in ourselves and progresses upward on behalf of the nation. He says, nations "are suceptible to all moral feelings.. including repentance" (p. 109). The nation is "mystically welded together" in this way. He further points to history to show the nature of Russian character in "penitental movements" as part of the national character that must be reclaimed to transform society.

The message of the book is that national transformations must occur at all levels but be built on a spiritual foundation. It offers a critical view of the roles of the church, socialism and personal conscience as obstacles or conduits for change.

While the social and political nature of Russia had dramatically entered upheaval for thepast 11 years (25 years after these essays were originally penned), the messages are still relevant for Russia today and equally applicable in many respects for our own country as well.

When we get annoyed at Solzhenitsyn's lack of insight in contemporary politics (for instance, when he applauds the Russian intervention in Chechnya), we can turn back to his depictions of life in the Soviet work camps and delight in the fact that he used to be different (when the ruling was an enemy suiting his conservative and slavophile ideas, as one is tempted to add).

'The Love-Girl and the Innocent' is a brilliant play about the inhuman world of the camps, that have their own rules, and where nothing of the world outside matters. The 'Innocent' is a newly arrived prisoner, who still bears idealism and is reluctant to adopt the camp techniques of survival. His love for Lyuba, one of the many women forced by circumstances to sell themselves for privileges and rations, tempts him to compromise with himself and betray his moral and emotional loyalties.

For lovers of Russian literature and history buffs, this is a terrific book! If you're not a fan of this genre, however, it's going to be ONE TOUGH READ. Solzhenitsyn throws in characters with machine-gun rapidity as well as hundreds of local historical references that will be lost on many folks simply eager to find out about a bit about one of the greatest writers of the century.

That having been said, this one is a winner. Rich description, lovely prose and Solzhenitsyn's obvious love for his homeland are woven into a terrific work that offers deep insights into the Russian view this tumultuous period in their history. For my money, the portion of the book dealing the desperate Russian army and their misguided leaders is Solzhenitsyn at his finest: brutally accurate and never lacking in a deeper understanding of the flawed human beings that made up the events.

This is a must read, but don't make it your first foray into Russian literature or Solzhenitsyn. Try a shorter, less complex work first and then move to this if you like the genre.

Solzhenitsyn's The Red Wheel, Knot I is an extraordinarily work. His attention to historical detail and ability to draw the reader into the mind of each character make this an extremely enjoyable reconstruction of this chaotic period in Russian history. Solzhenitsyn incorporates newspaper clippings, military communiqués, multiple character viewpoints including German, Russian, revolutionary, soldier, and student in an almost patchwork manner which conveys history's turbid nature. The author occasionally employs a screenplay method, which lends an interesting visual element to the book. Overall, the only comparable book I have read would be Tolstoy's War and Peace. Solzhenitsyn's The Red Wheel is not an "easy read", but I highly recommend it to anyone with some backround in Russian history (without which you may find yourself lost at times) and an interest in historical fiction. Read the "complete and unabridged" version to get the most out of this book.

August 1914 is a historical novel examining the causes for the decline of 19th Century aristocratic Russia to a 20th Century Russia of Socialist experimentation. Solzhenitsyn (AS) picks up his 20th Century analysis of Russia where Tolstoy left off his 19th Century point of view. This is a powerful novel displaying history, as it defines its causality. It grapples with the character of the Russian who is about to face revolutionary change which will deliver the country and its people from an agrarian peasant society to an industrialist monstrous social catastrophe. AS examines how and why Russia went socialist. For students of the French Revolution, August 1914 is another manifestation of how that earlier revolution influenced and occurred in Russia. For students interested in the transition of a culture from 19th Century behavior and values to extreme expiramental 20th political practices, this book is mandatory. August 1914 best demonstrates Henry Adams' forecast that the 19th century mode of life would change radically in the 20th century. AS' dynamo is a war, a romantic urge and a people who are ready for change and have the temperment to change as they did. This is truly an absorbing book and an important book to anyone interested in the influence of Russia in the 20th century. It is a must read for anyone who is interested in Russian history. In fact, it is a great place to start for anyone who is beginning a survey of Russia of history.