Abstract

BOOKS- Science and Public Affairs Is the cycle repeating itself? Those Are individuals who sacrifice lonely individuals who are dedicated themselves, who keep struggling in Victims to intellectual and political freedom this apparently hopeless situation, de­ of a Strange Delusion and who now challenge the inheri­ spite seeming lack of popular sup­ tors of Stalin's absolutism by writing port and in the face of an eagerly and circulating "subversive" books obedient administrative and judicial "The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysen­ and pamphlets: Are they harbingers establishment, mental cases? The So­ ko," by Zhores A. Medvedev. of the never-ending rebellion of men viet government must think so : It Translated by I. Michael Lerner. against arbitrary rule? Are their sends them to psychiatric clinics and Columbia University Press, New quixotic sacrifices the seeds which hospitals for investigation and treat­ York, 1969. 301 pages. $10. will germinate and mature some day ment. "The Medvedev Papers The - perhaps only in many decades? Two brothers, Roy and Zhores Plight of Soviet Science Today," These intellectual rebels are not Medvedev, are prominent among by Zhores A. Medvedev. Trans· protagonists of the past - of mon­ these "fools." Roy is a historian