In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning "Gulag," acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway.

"In a world uncomfortably like our own, a young woman named Amalantis is arrested for asking a question. Her question is this: Who is the prisoner? When Amalantis disappears, her lover Karnak goes looking for her. He searches desperately at first, then with a growing realization that to find Amalantis, he must first understand the meaning of her question. Karnak's search leads him into a terrifying world of deception, oppression, and fear at the heart...

"It has been eighty years since the Axis won World War II, and America was divided between the victors: the Nazis in the East and Imperial Japan in the West; but now resistance is growing in the Eastern territories and sixteen-year-old Chinese American Ren Cabot, who has every reason to hate the Japanese who executed his mother, finds himself drawn into a resistance group and confronted with choices that could lead to freedom--or death."--Publisher's...

A fictional autobiography of thirty-year-old Oskar Matzerath who has lived through the long Nazi nightmare and who, as the novel begins, is being held in a mental institution. Willfully stunting his growth at three feet for many years, wielding his tin drum and piercing scream as anarchistic weapons, he provides a profound yet hilarious perspective on both German history and the human condition in the modern world.

Tells four stories of Iranian men who face the difficult choice between following their conscience or risking everything they have.

"Nils Melzer's compelling investigation shows how, through secrecy, impunity and, crucially, public indifference, unchecked power risks annihilating Western democracy and the rule of law. The case of Julian Assange could set a chilling precedent"--