The book is gripping, but it doesn’t quite deliver on its subtitled promise to 'win the Cold War with forbidden literature.' The story English has researched and put together focuses almost entirely on Poland’s fight for freedom from the USSR ... What this book does incredibly well is document an oral history of Polish resistance that has, until now, only been told in bits and pieces ... This literary history is a prescient one.
A real pleasure to read – a finely written page-turner full of well-researched stories of smuggling, intrigue and survival. It would make an exceptionally good series for television, and it provides a powerful reminder of the extraordinary events of Poland’s struggle for freedom. Suitably for such a literate nation, books played their part in it, and Minden got the result he wanted.
Vivid and moving ... Gripping ... Oddly, the one thing missing from English’s account is the books themselves: we never discover which titles all these people were reading, or what they made of them.
English lays out the complexity of this massive distribution network—from CIA funding to acquiring writings, sourcing printers and supplies, and assembling staff to carry out the mission—all undertaken in great secrecy and at huge personal risk. Many other factors were at work in pulling down the Iron Curtain, as English makes clear here, but also clear is the CIA’s unrecognized success in advocating for democracy and the rule of law against overwhelming odds.
