The Captive Mind

Written in Paris in 1951, while he was in exile from his native Poland, Milosz's denunciation of Stalinism outraged many European intellectuals at a time when they were becoming drawn to the politics of Communist Russia. However, it is now acknowledged as a classic work against totalitarianism, standing alongside those of Orwell and Solzhenitsyn.The Captive Mind analyses the power of tyrannical regimes to enslave men and women, not just through terror, but through ideas, achieving 'mastery over the human spirit'. Championing intellectual freedom, Milosz's brilliantly perceptive polemic played a significant liberating role in Poland, and is still relevant and chilling today.

Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. Born in Lithuania while it was still part of the Russian Empire, he lived much of his life in Poland or exiled in California. He was the author of one of the definitive books on totalitarianism, The Captive Mind, but also wrote with extraordinary vividness and moral authority on his childhood, his experiences under Nazism and on the tragedy of Central Europe.

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