The Soviet Mind ─ Russian Culture Under Communism

Berlin (former professor of social and political theory, Oxford U., UK), well known for his political philosophy and its distinction between positive and negative freedoms, was less recognized as a Russian-Jewish emigre. This collection of 10 essays gathers his writings on the USSR and includes his reflections on the work of Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandel'shtam, his account of his 1956 visit to the Soviet Union as a guest of the British Ambassador, and a post-Soviet assessment of the state of Russian intelligentsia. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Isaiah Berlin (1909?1997) taught for most of his life at Oxford University, where he was successively professor of social and political theory and founding president of Wolfson College. Thereafter he served as president of the British Academy. Henry Hardy is a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford University. He is one of Isaiah Berlin's literary trustees and has edited a number of other collections of Berlin's essays. Strobe Talbott is president of the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books on Russia and the Soviet Union.