Prophets and Conspirators in Pre-Revolutionary Russia

More than a century ago, Russia saw the burgeoning of a tradition of revolutionary violence that was not to bear fruit until 1917, but that even in those earlier times deeply affected the Russian people. In this book, Adam Ulam offers a history of Russian political and intellectual life in those critical years from 1855 to 1884 and describes the successive conspiracies that shook the edifice of tsarist autocracy.
Ulam's dramatic and densely detailed story is suggestive of many themes that seem strikingly modern: the rebellion of a younger generation, women's liberation, the struggle for sexual freedom, intellectual dissent, the political role of ethnic minorities. But above all, his book is about extraordinary people - radicals, dissenters, writers, students, and activists who in the name of the people called for revolution in Russia.

Adam B. Ulam is Gurney Professor of History and Political Science at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1949.