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Summary & Study Guide How We Survived Communism & Even Laughed by Slavenka Drakulic
How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed Study Guide consists of approx. 23 pages of summaries and analysis on How We Survived Communism by Slavenka Drakulic. This study guide includes the following Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion.
25 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 15, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 13, 2013
Though the tale of food scarcity, unavailable household products, and the dreariness of domestic life under Soviet ideology is not new for most readers, it is her ability to allow the reader to relate to the struggles, as well as the examination of intellectual imperialism from a feminine perspective and absence of an idealized western solution that makes Drakulic’s book truly remarkable.
November 10, 2014
As posted earlier I do not believe the Goodreads' rating system is appropriate for other than mass market publications. For a book such as this a 5-star rating should be characterized as "powerful" rather than the Junior Highish "I really liked it".
Salvenka Drakulic is a Serbian feminist who relates to the reader episodes of authentic discrimination against women in the former Eastern Bloc countries dominated after WWII by the Soviet Union. Discrimination by the natural product of a totalitarian Communist state. While Drakulic's essays in this book focus upon the condition of women under Communist rule, one sees clearly the effect such systems have upon all people subject to its commands and control.
Americans in 2014 who embrace progressive notions should read this book to experience first-hand accounts of the results of what will come from their Communist utopian dreams.
Those Americans who do not embrace today's progressivism should also read this book for information that will inoculate them against the temptation of American and Western European progressive and socialist appeals.
Such appeals are merely words of fantasy. Drakulic's essays reveal the truth to which such words inevitably lead. Leftists - progressives, socialists, and communists - in the West who continue to hold to their dreams have obviously ignored the implicit warnings in Drakulic's work against what comes from collectively organized and centrally planned societies and economies.
Salvenka Drakulic is a Serbian feminist who relates to the reader episodes of authentic discrimination against women in the former Eastern Bloc countries dominated after WWII by the Soviet Union. Discrimination by the natural product of a totalitarian Communist state. While Drakulic's essays in this book focus upon the condition of women under Communist rule, one sees clearly the effect such systems have upon all people subject to its commands and control.
Americans in 2014 who embrace progressive notions should read this book to experience first-hand accounts of the results of what will come from their Communist utopian dreams.
Those Americans who do not embrace today's progressivism should also read this book for information that will inoculate them against the temptation of American and Western European progressive and socialist appeals.
Such appeals are merely words of fantasy. Drakulic's essays reveal the truth to which such words inevitably lead. Leftists - progressives, socialists, and communists - in the West who continue to hold to their dreams have obviously ignored the implicit warnings in Drakulic's work against what comes from collectively organized and centrally planned societies and economies.
December 25, 2013
This book is amazing! There is no way to describe women's lives in the USSR than the way that Drakulic does it. She takes you into the homes of the women living in the poverty stricken lands under communist rule prior to the Iron Curtain coming down. She also explains that democracy did not bring them immediate relief and that many people suffered long after communism left--after all, she argues that communism and poverty are more than a state of being, they are a state of mind. This is a wonderful piece of literary non-fiction, and I recommend it everyone.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews