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.

When the Soviet Union disintegrated into independent countries, the West hailed the collapse as a victory for democracy. The dismantling of the Soviet Union as the centralized economic system required the separate countries to establish their own economies, assemble political structures, and reconcile territorial issues. As a result of the disintegration, many peripheral wars have ensued. This book looks at the transformation of politics throughout...