‘Conquest brings the cool energy of a lifetime’s experience to every page. The mind whose powers of analysis gave courage to the reforming forces in the Soviet Union has not lost its talent for asking embarrassing questions’ Clive James .
‘Robert Conquest ... now summarizes his life’s work as a critic of totalitarianism and draws some fundamental moral conclusions. A truly valuable and timely book’ Paul Johnson .
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The Dragons of Expectation is an urgent call for society to examine the ‘brain-blindfolds’ that have consistently stifled debate and prevented painful self-examination. It is a landmark defence of civilisation that illuminates the political degradations and intellectual fetishisms of our current world.
From the author of The Great Terror and The Harvest of Sorrow comes this long-awaited work of history and philosophy. Aware of the ‘primitive delusions’ that have attracted people to rogue ideologies over the past century, Robert Conquest, with a deep and consistently compassionate gaze, has devoted a lifetime to exposing the political and mental distortions that have spawned or appeased implacable regimes and led, all too often, to death and destruction. Here, in The Dragons of Expectation, whether discussing the political thinking of ancient Greece, the corrosive effect of ideological socialism, or the inanities of the European Union, Conquest assesses the ravages of our past, the absurdities of our present, and the pitfalls that lie in our future. Whether discussing the failures of the Enlightenment or the nature of Democracy, Stalinism, and Liberalism, Conquest masterfully examines how false nostrums have affected academe, politicians and the public, showing how their reliance on ‘isms’ and the destructive concepts of ‘People, Nation, and Masses’ have resulted in a ruinous cycle of totalitarianism and war.
