”…his book of essays by Leszek Kolakowski is indispensable, exciting reading. [lt] makes coherent the amorphous strivings toward political independence and intellectual tolerance now stirring in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and even in Rumania…. Most impressive to me is his awareness of dimensions of life that transcend the political, and his recognition of the commanding perspective of the tragic vision, even in the best of all possible worlds.”
—Sidney Hook, The New York Times Book Review

”Kolakowski reasserts the personal, or ’subjective,’ factor in history. He reacts sharply to the Polish situation where the Party compromised its ideology to win state power. What is relevant for the American Left in this is that ... there is a deep need in this country as well as in Poland for the utopian action Kolakowski advocates.”
-Tom Hayden

Leszek Kolakowski, the brilliant Polish philosopher, first received international recognition in the early days of the ”thaw,” just after Stalin’s death. Since then his reputation as a provoca-tive, unsparing thinker has been established on both sides of the Atlantic. This first English-language collection of his essays, containing profound re-examinations and re-interpretations of Marxism, shows why Kolakowski has been both praised and attacked at home and abroad. Rooted in Poland’s rigorous philosophical tradition, his work is also a part of his country’s current intellectual and political ferment. It has much to say to contemporary Americans, especially to all the elements of the New Left, because it speaks for a new generation of students and intellectual leaders.