In a book that ranks with the greatest adventure stories, Gregory Wallance's “Into Siberia” is the untold story of how one man's harrowing journey exposed the barbaric Siberian exile system that sent a million Russians into a vast prison without a roof. In the late nineteenth century, a close diplomatic friendship existed between the United States and Russia. That changed when George Kennan went to Siberia in 1885 to investigate the exile system and his eyes were opened to the brutality Russia wielded to suppress dissent. Over ten months Kennan traveled eight thousand miles, mostly in horse-drawn carriages, sleighs or on horseback. Into Siberia offers readers an immersive experience in Kennan's journey through suffocating summer sandstorms and fierce winter blizzards. His interviews with convicts and political exiles revealed that Russia ran on the fuel of inflicted pain and fear. Prisoners in the mines who were chained day and night to their wheelbarrows as punishment and babies who froze to death in their mothers' arms. Kennan came to call the exiles' experience in Siberia a "perfect hell of misery." After returning to the United States, Kennan generated national outrage over the plight of the exiles by writing the renowned Siberia and the Exile System and going on a nine-year lecture tour, with consequences for the US-Russia relationship that are still felt today.
"In Wallance's bracing narrative, Kennan emerges as a cheerful, deeply decent companion, an uncompromising observer whose greatest strength was his ability to change his mind. He's a welcome change from the callous imperialists who people most Victorian travelogues, and his humanity allows Into Siberia to delve into horror without succumbing to despair."
The New York Times Book Review
"[A] riveting biography … Resurfacing a mostly forgotten episode of Russian-American relations, this thrillingly narrated adventure enthralls."
Publishers Weekly, starred review
"A page-turning history of a harrowing investigation that upended Russian-American relations."
