After Postwar
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum
Judt taught you how Europe rebuilt itself from rubble. Now Applebaum shows you exactly how the Soviets dismantled Eastern Europe's soul—one purge, one propaganda ministry, one terrified collaboration at a time. Same intellectual high of chaos crystallizing into understanding, same refusal to romanticize, but with archival receipts that turn ideology into flesh-and-blood terror.