The hell of the Siberian labor camps under the Romanovs: "Masterfully gripping... about crime and punishment, love and brutal violence." Simon Sebag Montefiore. In endless columns, they marched for months toward Siberia: the exiles of the Tsarist Empire. Men, women, and children—entire families—were forced to toil under extreme conditions in Siberian labor camps. The ice hell had to be settled, and the resources were to be exploited—a colossal task that could only be managed with convicted criminals. Historian Daniel Beer compellingly and touchingly recounts the daily lives, despair, and hope of those who often committed no greater crime than criticizing the Tsarist regime—like Dostoevsky or Lenin. He illustrates how, in this microcosm of liberal intellectuals, a seed of the 1917 revolution emerged.