Recounts a covert Cold War operation led by George Minden to smuggle banned literature into Eastern Europe, focusing on the cultural and psychological battle against Soviet censorship and the role underground reading networks played in weakening totalitarian control, especially in Poland.
It’s a story as fascinating as it is undersung ... Riveting ... English’s book is a reminder of what’s lost when a government no longer believes in the power of its own ideals.
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.
The title of Mr. English’s book is somewhat misleading for two reasons. First, it deals entirely with Poland, whereas the CIA book and broadcast projects reached the entire Soviet bloc. Second, the main story he tells concerns not the CIA but a group of plucky and shrewd Poles who devised endless forms of book-smuggling ... Mr. English shrewdly observes that Poland was better prepared for life after communism ... Occasionally, Mr. English chooses his words carelessly.
