The Hammer's Gone: The History of Communism Told in Jokes

The revealing and humorous story of communism. Jokes about communism are the strangest, funniest, and perhaps even most significant legacy of those eighty years of political experimentation in Russia and Eastern Europe. Ben Lewis tells what really happened during that period through the jokes and the stories of the people who told them—many of whom ended up in the Gulag, though others went on to hold high office or become stars of theater and film. Culturally significant, this is the story of a political system that left, beyond the jokes, many unanswered questions. Ben Lewis's documentary "Gone with the Hammer" was broadcast on BBC4 and a number of other television stations around the world in 2006. He has won several international awards for his documentaries. He is also a presenter and screenwriter and a regular contributor to Prospect, the Evening Standard, and the Sunday Telegraph.