bNational Book Award Finalist briTIMEi Magazine's 1 Nonfiction Book of 2012brA iNew York Timesi Notable BookbrA iWashington Posti Top Ten Book of 2012brBest Nonfiction of 2012 iThe Wall Street Journali, iThe Plain Dealeri brbbrIn the much-anticipated follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning iGulagi, 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. iIron Curtain idescribes how, spurred by Stalin and his secret police, the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. Drawing on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time, Applebaum portrays in chilling detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated