Publication date:
30 July 2001Length of book:
200 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersDimensions:
227x149mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780742521131
In Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Daniel Mahoney presents a philosophical perspective on the political condition of modern man through an exegesis and analysis of Solzhenitsyn's work. Mahoney demonstrates the tremendous, yet often unappreciated, impact of Solzhenitsyn's writing on twentieth century thinking through an examination of the writer's profoundly important critique of communist totalitarianism in a judicious and original mix of western and Russian, Christian and classical wisdom.
In the natural progression of the ripening of Solzhenitsyn criticism, what has been needed is a book by a political theorist who is at home in the vocabulary of political philosophy and fully familiar with the categories and concepts of that field. Daniel Mahoney fills this niche and his study advances Solzhenitsyn criticism not by small or even medium sized increments, but by a quantum leap forward. Mahoney's book will stand as the book on Solzhenitsyn's politics, precisely because it does not treat politics as a self-contained and free-standing entity, i.e. it does not tear the politics out of the overarching moral vision. This book is simply superb.