Motherland: A Philosophical History of Russia

　　In this "lucid primer of Russian thought" (The TimesLiterary Supplement), Lesley Chamberlain finds that during thelast two centuries Russian intellectuals have asked two fundamentalquestions, "what makes a good man?" and "what is the right way tolive?" The nineteenth-century ideal of a happy man living in a justsociety became, in Russia, a quest to effect the wholesaletransformation of society. Chamberlain shows how this moralpassion, manifesting itself in philosophy and literature, existedin both pre- and post-revolutionary Russia. She reveals that 1917did not represent the watershed we once thought, and shows how thedreams of a plain and simple life reached its negative apotheosisunder Lenin. In Motherland, Lesley Chamberlain has produceda radical new interpretation of Russian intellectual history that,finally, gives a glimpse in to the soul of that singularcountry.