Ebook Free My Past and Thoughts, by Alexander Herzen
Checking out routine will certainly always lead individuals not to satisfied reading My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen, an e-book, ten e-book, hundreds e-books, as well as much more. One that will make them feel pleased is completing reading this book My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen and also obtaining the notification of the publications, then locating the other following publication to check out. It proceeds more and more. The moment to finish reviewing a publication My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen will be constantly numerous relying on spar time to invest; one instance is this My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen
My Past and Thoughts, by Alexander Herzen
Ebook Free My Past and Thoughts, by Alexander Herzen
How an idea can be obtained? By looking at the celebrities? By going to the sea and also taking a look at the sea weaves? Or by checking out a book My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen Everyone will certainly have certain unique to get the inspiration. For you who are dying of books and also constantly obtain the motivations from publications, it is truly terrific to be here. We will certainly show you hundreds compilations of the book My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen to review. If you similar to this My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen, you could additionally take it as yours.
As recognized, book My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen is popular as the home window to open the world, the life, as well as brand-new point. This is exactly what the people now need a lot. Even there are many individuals who do not like reading; it can be an option as referral. When you actually need the methods to create the following motivations, book My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen will actually guide you to the way. Additionally this My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen, you will certainly have no regret to obtain it.
To obtain this book My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen, you could not be so baffled. This is on-line book My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen that can be taken its soft documents. It is different with the online book My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen where you could purchase a book and afterwards the seller will send the printed book for you. This is the area where you could get this My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen by online and after having take care of getting, you could download My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen on your own.
So, when you require quickly that book My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen, it doesn't should get ready for some days to receive guide My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen You could straight obtain the book to conserve in your gadget. Even you love reading this My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen all over you have time, you can enjoy it to check out My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen It is definitely practical for you who intend to get the more valuable time for reading. Why don't you invest five minutes and also invest little cash to get the book My Past And Thoughts, By Alexander Herzen here? Never ever let the extra point quits you.
Alexander Herzen's own brilliance and the extraordinary circumstances of his life combine to place his memoirs among the greatest works of the modern era. Born in 1812, the illegitimate son of a wealthy Russian landowner, he became one of the most important revolutionary and intellectual figures of his time: as theorist, polemicist, propagandist, and political actor. Fifty years after his death, Lenin revered him as the father of Russian revolutionary socialism. Tolstoy said he had never met another man "with so rare a combination of scintillating brilliance and depth." His monumental autobiography is an unparalleled record of his—and his century's—remarkable life.
Herzen's story of his privileged childhood among the Russian aristocracy is lit with the insight of a great novelist. With a trained historian's sense of the interaction of people and events, he limns the grand line of revolutionary development from the earliest stirrings of Russian radicalism throughthe tumultuous ideological debates of the international. His close friends and enemies—Marx, Wagner, Mill, Bakunin, Garibaldi, Kropotkin—are brought brilliantly alive. Dwight Macdonald's knowledgeable and fluent abridgment makes this great work readily available to the modern reader.
- Sales Rank: #920878 in Books
- Published on: 1982-04-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.44" h x 5.48" w x 8.23" l, 1.83 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 752 pages
Language Notes
Text: English, Russian (translation)
From the Inside Flap
"A literary masterpiece to be placed by the side of the novels by Herzen's contemporaries and countrymen, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky."—Sir Isaiah Berlin
"Herzen's memoirs are one of the great nineteenth-century monuments, an essential document as well as a noble piece of literature."—Philip Toynbee
Most helpful customer reviews
41 of 45 people found the following review helpful.
Herzen is the Culmination of Russian Romantic Thought
By Kenneth S. Cargill
In the years before Lenin and the harsh, bleak application of socialist thought to autocracy there existed a group of philosophers who believed in the beauty of the commune and its cooperation with a Republican government. Britain had Robert Owen and his factory town, the French had Fourier (the phalanstery) and Proudhon among others, and the Russians had Herzen. Here existed a time where the leading academics saw folly in violent revolution, and Herzen was by no means a demogogue willing to mobilize the Russian peasants in a siege of Moscow like a simple Pugachev or a Decembrist.
This perhaps explains Herzen's stern dislike of Marx and Engels, for he saw too much of the Robespierre in them and their ideas.
Herzen believed in democracy almost in a modern American sense. Indeed, much of the work is laced with arguments in disfavor to the flowering of socialism in Europe, citing particularly the cruelty of the police in France during 1848: "The Latin world does not like freedom, it only likes to sue for it." Certainly the tendencies of the Germans were no more progressive either. Instead at one point in the text the author suggests that those who "can put off from himself the old Adam of Europe and be born again a new Jonathan had better take the first steamer to some place in Wisconsin or Kansas."
The selections and abridgement of the text emphasize Herzen's basic belief about reform: revolution is gradual. One has to breed engrained stupidity out of the ruling class and make laws that better everyone, like the English and Americans. Laws make a better society, not people: "The Englishman's liberty is more in his institutions than in himself or his conscience. His freedom is the 'common law.'"
The text covers the demise of Herzen, culminating in his rejection on his deathbed by the new revolutionary ("terrorist") camps in Russia, headed ideologically by Chernyshevsky and best seen in the widespread incendiary and murderous practices of Sergei Nechaev. These are all topics of the years after Herzen's death, the tragic history of the latter half of the nineteenth century and the prelude to the pall of 1917.
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful.
Some Observations
By Frederick D. Friedman
One finds oneself drawn to Herzen. He comes off as urbane, generous, strong, empathetic to those suffering under the Tsar (and all tyrannies), dedicated to the cause of bringing freedom to his homeland and a wonderful writer. He seems to have known, or at least bumped into, all the luminaries of the Russia and the Europe of his time.
This abridgement by Dwight McDonald, dating I believe from 1968, is of its time. The editor tells us that he excised those portions of the narrative dealing with Herzen's marriage, his wife's affair with a close friend of Herzen's, the loss of his mother and son in the sinking of a passenger boat and the death of his wife shortly thereafter. I wish that material had been included. I suppose an abridgement done in 2007 might include only those portions and nothing else, as we have less high seriousness and more interest in scandal and tragedy. In any case, I would have loved to read Herzen on these more personal topics.
I should add that it may be my spotty background in 19th Century European history but I was lost any number of times as I read. Herzen is telling us about contemporary men, events, controversies and schools of thought. There are numerous footnotes identifying the people he refers to but I needed more--no doubt the references would have been understood by any educated reader at the time but that was then.
That said, I'm glad I made the effort and I wish I could have met him.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
Herzen in Brief
By Philip Brantingham
There is no question that it is good to have this edition of Alexander Herzen's autobiography, "My Past and Thoughts," though it is considerably abridged. The work is deservedly praised as one of the great autobiographies of the West. Well written and colorful, it acquaints us with the mind and spirit of one of the most important political figures of the nineteenth century. Herzen, darling of radicals and nemesis of conservatives (wrongly, I believe), is a seminal thinker and activist of his time.
Herzen, a Russian by birth but an internationalist in spirit, knew most of the radicals of the era, Bakunin, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Louis Blanc. Yet he was in a way not one of them. He was too hardheaded and too reasonable--he knew what worked and what didn't. Raised in autocratic Russia, he had experienced prison, exile--and fame as a writer.
This edition has been abridged by Dwight MacDonald, unfortunately leaving out some crucial parts, for example his relations with his wife, Natalie, and other more domestic issues. However, the original appeared in five volumes, and something had to be excised to make this edition manageable. Those who wish to read the complete autobiography should look up the Knopf four-volume edition of 1968. Nonetheless, this edition will do for most of us. It's a gem.
Philip Brantingham
Chicago, IL
My Past and Thoughts, by Alexander Herzen PDF
My Past and Thoughts, by Alexander Herzen EPub
My Past and Thoughts, by Alexander Herzen Doc
My Past and Thoughts, by Alexander Herzen iBooks
My Past and Thoughts, by Alexander Herzen rtf
My Past and Thoughts, by Alexander Herzen Mobipocket
My Past and Thoughts, by Alexander Herzen Kindle
No comments:
Post a Comment