The Captive Mind - Softcover

Milosz, Czeslaw

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0394747240 ISBN 13: 9780394747248

Publisher: Vintage, 1981

Synopsis

In the 1950's Eastern Europe was in the grip of Stalinism; still, many Western intellectuals mistakenly placed their hopes in the new world in the East. That time is now past, yet totalitarian thinking, whether of the left or the right, exerts - and will continue to exert - a powerful attraction on the minds of men. In this "brilliant book" (Irving Howe, The New York Times Book Review), Czeslaw Milosz takes us into the world inhabited by the people of Communist Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Hungary, and reveals in fascinating and frightening detail what happens to the human mind under totalitarianism: the often compelling reasons that lead men to embrace it and why - given the spiritual price of living on terms established by an omnipotent state - there is the urgent need to find political solutions elsewhere.

About this title

From the Publisher:

A central text in the modern effort to understand totalitarianism. --The New York Times Book Review

"As timely today as when it was written."--Jerzy Kosinski

From the Back Cover:

Written in the early 1950s, When Eastern Europe was in the grip of Stalinism and many Western intellectuals placed their hopes in the new order of the East, this classic work reveals in fascinating detail the often beguiling allure its frightening effects on the minds of those who embrace it.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1981
• ISBN 10: 0394747240
• ISBN 13: 9780394747248
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 251