What Is to Be Done? - (Signature Editions) by Nikolai Chernyshevsky (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Controversial and profoundly impactful, Nikolai Chernyshevsky's 1863 novel, What Is to Be Done? offered a radical vision of selfless intellectuals remaking society through reason and science, inspiring Russian revolutionaries and helping to reshape Russian nineteenth-century politics and imagination. With its critique of moderate reform, Chernyshevsky's novel offered a powerful socialist vision that would exacerbate the divide between revolutionaries and liberal reformers, paving the way for Marx's work and the Russian Revolution. Its impact cannot be overstated; as The Southern Review has argued, "No work in modern literature, with the possible exception of Uncle Tom's Cabin, can compete with What Is to Be Done? in its effect on human lives and its power to make history."

About the Author

Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889) was a nineteenth-century Russian novelist, journalist, social critic, and philosopher, whose best-known novel What Is to Be Done? became a revolutionary touchstone and had a profound impact on the course of Russian literature and politics.