Gulag: A History of the Soviet Concentration Camps

Extremely thoroughly researched, documented, organized and structured (though I disliked the chosen structure - on themes rather than chronologically, because it leads to reiterations of the same periods).
But dry and often boring, failing to capture the most important element of the Gulag: the scope of individual human suffering, lost here in a too ”from above”, too large and statistical picture.
PS: I recommend you avoid the Penguin Books edition, it is printed in tiny-tiny crowded letters, on very thin paper, with ink that gets on the fingers.

This book is such an important, well-researched resource. First, because the Soviet Gulag has been underreported and allowed to fade in our cultural memory, and second, because the atrocities humans are capable of doing to their neighbors are repeating in the United States right now, and this book is a stark reminder of just how inured to such a thing a society can get when a government is allowed to continue harmful policies unchecked.