Gulag

This book by Anne Applebaum has come up 2 times across 2 different shows: Diary of a CEO, Lex Fridman. One of those mentions was a genuine on-air recommendation, not just a passing reference. The people who brought it up: Anne Applebaum, Lex Fridman. The earliest mention we indexed is from 2025-01-05 and the most recent from 2026-05-11. Every occurrence below links to the episode page and to the exact second it was said on YouTube.

A fully documented history of the Soviet camp system, from its origins in the Russian Revolution to its collapse in the era of glasnost. Anne Applebaum first lays out the chronological history of the camps and the logic behind their creation, enlargement, and maintenance. Applebaum also examines how life was lived within this shadow country: how prisoners worked, how they ate, where they lived, how they died, how they survived.