Untimely Thoughts: Essays on Revolution, Culture and the Bolsheviks 1917-1918
by Maxim Gorky
Paperback/300pp/Yale University Press

One of the most renowned Soviet writers of the 20th century, Maxim Gorky was an early supporter of the Bolsheviks but became disillusioned after the 1917 revolution. Untimely Thoughts is a collection of critical articles that Gorky wrote for the magazine New Life in the aftermath of revolution. In these essays, the worth and rights of the individual remain a pervading theme; so, too, did Gorky's belief in the need for a spiritual revolution to shake up the minds of the Russian people. "An important book of as much interest now as at the time it was written." -Walter Laqueur

The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive
edited by Richard Pipes
Hardcover/204pp/Yale University Press
HBS price: $7.99

Edited and introduced by Harvard emeritus professor Richard Pipes, this collection of newly released documents from the Lenin archive in Russia lays bare the man and the politician, leaving little doubt that he was a ruthless and manipulative leader who used terror, subversion, and persecution to achieve his goals. They include letters, memos, telegrams, reports, directives, and notes, concentrated around the tumultuous years 1917-1922.

Back to Freud's Texts: Making Silent Documents Speak
by Ilse Grubrich-Simitis
Hardcover/322pp/Yale University Press
HBS price: $5.99

A trailblazer in Freud research, Ilse Grubrich-Simitis examines and deciphers Freud's original manuscripts, which had remained disregarded for decades, situating Freud in his proper historical context. From these documents, Grubrich-Simitis analyzes Freud's method of working and points out what the writings reveal of his psychological states, the events in his life, and the development of his thinking over time. It is, at once, a study of Freud's creativity as scientist and writer, a reference to the texts themselves, and a commentary on unexplored aspects of his life and work. "An important contribution to the growing understanding of Freud as a mind and as a writer." -New York Times Book Review

Nuremberg Diary
by G.M. Gilbert
Paperback/471pp/Da Capo Press
HBS price: $7.99

G.M. Gilbert was the prison psychologist before and during the Nuremberg trial and author of The Psychology of Dictatorship. He had an unrivalled, firsthand opportunity to watch and question Nazi war criminals, to encourage Goering, Speer, Hess, Jodl, Ribbentrop, Streicher and others to reveal their innermost thoughts. Nuremberg Diary is a chronological record of the trial, where the defendants mostly speak for themselves. Here their motivations are revealed, as well as their day-to-day reactions to the trial proceedings; their opinions of Hitler and the Third Reich; their views on slave labor, death camps, and the Jews; and their maneuverings to disassociate themselves from defeat and war guilt.