Michael Bakunin: Roots of Apocalypse

«Mendel's psychobiography is boldly original, clearly important, and not without its own curiosities. It is not a book to gladden the heart of Bakunin worshippers if there are still any around. It is likely neither to resolve issues for historians who take their history neat, nor to reinforce the views of those who believe that the culture of narcissism originated in mid-1970s America. Yet the book makes absorbing reading. Coming from a senior professor of hisory at the University of Michigan with an illustrious publishing record in Russian studies, this study is thoroughly scholarly, with all the strengths and liabilities implied in that term.... the impression is that all available primary sources have been judiciously woven into an integrated narrative that recreates all that possibly can be said of the Russian anarchist's thought, life, and his cultural milieu. Psychoanalytic theories are enlisted to reconstruct the deeper structures, conflicts, and their consequences for the subject's psyche....“”Journal of Psychohistory