The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Tackling Jordan Peterson’s Reading List

In this series I discuss the books on Jordan Peterson’s Great Book List in no particular order. My hope is to help those interested understand what they’re getting into and choose which books they decide to take on.

Why would anyone spend time looking into the darkest depths of the hell on earth created by the Soviet Union in the twentieth century? Because the only way to see the light of mankind is to look where it is darkest. And by doing so, you see what is truest about humanity itself. And that is just one thing that this book will do for you.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago takes us on a journey to both the depths of both depravity and inspiration. This book is what history is supposed to be. Instead of simply learning what happened, when it happened, and who made it happen, Solzhenitsyn looks at the nature of people in these experiences and displays that nature for us.