Lev Tolstoy has held the attention of mankind for well over a century. Asupremely talented artist whose novels and short stories continue to entrancereaders all... » 

Lev Tolstoy has held the attention of mankind for well over a century. Asupremely talented artist whose novels and short stories continue to entrancereaders all over the world he was at the same time a fearless moralphilosopher who explored and challenged the fundamental bases of human societypolitical economic legal and cultural. Hugh McLean Professor Emeritus ofRussian literature at the University of California Berkeley has been studyingand writing about Tolstoy for many years. In these essays he investigates someof the numerous puzzles and paradoxes in the Tolstoyan heritage engaging bothwith Tolstoy the artist author of those incomparable novels and Tolstoy thethinker who from his impregnable outpost at Yasnaya Polyana questioned thereceived ideas and beliefs of the whole civilized world. In two concludingessays Tolstoy beyond Tolstoy McLean deals with the impact of Tolstoy onsuch diverse figures as Ernest Hemingway and Isaiah Berlin. «