'The Flow of Ideas': a new book by Andrzej Walicki

Abstract

This is a review of the recent monograph by Andrzej Walicki, one of the best known Polish historians of Russian philosophy. Walicki is Fellow of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Professor Emeritus of Notre Dame University (Indiana, USA). Walicki's present book is a revised and extended version of the work published back in 1979 under the title A History of Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to Marxism which came to be regarded as the standard English-language handbook on Russian philosophy (Russian translation printed in 2012). The appearance of Walicki's new book is a major event for every student of the history of Russian philosophy. Walicki not only reconsiders the large body of of new research that has emerged over the past thirty years, but he rests his analysis on tireless study of original sources, thus ensuring both the encyclopedic completeness and an impeccable reliability of information his work provides. As a result, it offers a solid background for the dialogue between Russian and Western scholars of the subject.