With a new foreword by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, "Best Non-Fiction Book of the 20th Century" - Time. A vast canvas of camps, prisons, transit centers, and secret police, of informants and spies and interrogators, but also of everyday heroism, The Gulag Archipelago is the masterpiece of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Based on the testimonies of about 200 survivors and Solzhenitsyn's own memories of eleven years in labor camps and exile, it tells the story of those in the heart of the Soviet Union who turned against Stalin, for whom the key to survival lay not in hope but in despair. A thoroughly researched document and a masterpiece of literary and creative power, this edition of The Gulag Archipelago has been abridged at the author's request and with his full cooperation. The Gulag Archipelago helped bring down an empire. Its significance cannot be overstated. - Doris Lessing, Sunday.