Photo: Mateusz Skwarczek (cropped by Oeleau) / CC BY-SA 4.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Anne Applebaum is, to my mind, one of the most important historians writing today. Her Pulitzer-winning Gulag and her searing Red Famine confront the cruelties of the twentieth century without flinching, and her decision to become a Polish citizen signals a writer who treats Central and Eastern Europe's struggle for freedom as personal, not academic. Honored by Poland, Ukraine, and Estonia alike, she has earned that recognition through rigor rather than polemic. I admire how she frames history as warning rather than entertainment, insisting that we remember authoritarianism's machinery precisely so we can recognize it returning. That moral seriousness is rare and necessary.
Overview
Anne Elizabeth Applebaum (born July 25, 1964) is an American journalist and historian. She has written about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She became a Polish citizen in 2013. Applebaum has worked at The Economist and The Spectator magazines, and she was a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post (2002–2006).
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Anne Applebaum
- Name (Japanese)
- アン・アプルボーム
- Reading
- あん・あぷるぼーむ
- Born
- July 25, 1964 (age 61)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Leo / Dragon
- Origin
- Washington, D.C., United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- historian / journalist / columnist / writer / non-fiction writer
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Yale University
Awards & achievements
- 2004 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
- Marshall Scholarship
- 2019 Order of Princess Olga, 3rd class
- 2009 Berlin Prize
- 2012 Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland
- 2008 Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 3rd Class
- 2013 Cundill History Prize
- 2018 Duff Cooper Prize
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
5. Works & records
| Category | Title | Role | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notable work | Gulag: A History | — | |
| Notable work | Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine | — |
6. Links
Historian — see all → · Journalist — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.