Chapter 1 A Chronicle of Terror Chapter 2 Solzhenitsyn's Stalin Chapter 3 Solzhenitsyn's Lenin Chapter 4 Solzhenitsyn's Marx Chapter 5 The Consequences of Marxism in the Soviet Union and Elsewhere Chapter 6 Solzhenitsyn on the West Chapter 7 On a Revival of the Spirit
James F. Pontuso is Elliot Professor of Political Science at Hampden-Sydney College.
As a political thinker, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was never much
appreciated in the United States. And soon, the half-century long
Cold War and why it had to be waged will be all but forgotten. In
the meantime, a soft Marxism still seems to prevail in the academy
and to some extent in popular culture as well. James Pontuso's
Assault on Ideology means to right this situation. He sets out for
us a lucid, sympathetic rendering of the political thought he finds
pervasive in Solzhenitsyn's writings. With Solzhenitsyn, he
retraces the atrocities of Communist regimes to their source in the
misguided theories of Karl Marx and even to some extent in the very
principles that gave rise to modern western liberalism. Pontuso
forces us to weigh the accuracy and importance of Solzhenitsyn's
analysis of communism and of western ambivalence in its face. In
doing so, he makes us reflect not only on recent history, but on
how we might best confront the new challenges we are now meeting in
the twenty-first century.
*Delba Winthrop, Harvard University*
James Pontuso's elegantly written and brilliant book was the first
and remains the best account of the many and varied connections
between Solzhenitsyn's courageous anti-ideological literary genius
and the enduring concerns of the tradition of political philosophy.
Solzhenitsyn is one of the two or three most important and the
single most admirable writers of the 20th century, and Pontuso has
provided an indispensable guide to how we can learn from and be
ennobled by his greatness.
*Peter Augustine Lawler, Berry College*
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