The Captive Mind

Rating:
Summary: Insightful
Review: Though the less than perfect translation of ideas from one language to another is often a problem, this is quite an insightful view of the transformation of Polish intellectuals and their intellectual life, through war and the failure of their own ideologies, into servants of the Stalinist state. It is really too bad that, with the passing of Communism, that Milosz has slipped somewhat from his place in the pantheon of thinkers and analysts of intellectual life. He, being a poet, brings a poet's sensibilities to the table, which by itself is refreshing but coupled with his melancholy humanism, which is sometimes gentle and sometimes a bit more strident, he deserves to be recognized as one of the great and good men of the intellectual history of the twentieth century.