Simon Ings

Four writers. Four dictators. One world, changed out of all recognition. Engineers of Human Souls is an intimate and shocking shadow history of creative vanity in a time that turned writers—once the faithful servants of authority—into figures of political consequence. Maurice Barres, who first wielded the politics of identity. Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose poetry became a blueprint for fascism. Maxim Gorky,...

An epic story of courage, genius and terrible folly, this is the first history of how the Soviet Union's scientists became both the glory and the laughing stock of the intellectual world. Simon Ings weaves together what happened when a handful of impoverished and underemployed graduates, professors and entrepreneurs, collectors and charlatans, bound themselves to a failing government to create...

Four writers. Four dictators. One world, changed out of all recognition. Engineers of Human Souls is an intimate and shocking shadow history of creative vanity in a time that turned writers - once the faithful servants of authority - into figures of political consequence. Maurice Barres, who first wielded the politics of identity. Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose poetry became a blueprint...