N S Rubashov, an old guard Communist, falls victim to an unnamed government. This novel traces his story through arrest, imprisonment and trail.

The second volume is in Koestler s own words a typical case history of a member of the educated middle classes of Central Europe in our time. We see him in Germany, Russia, England, France and Spain, working for the cause he believed in until his eventual break with Communism in 1938. It ends with his escape from Occupied France in 1940 to England, where he found a new home. An epilogue brings the story up to 1953."

A brand new edition of Arthur Koestler's gripping tale of arrest, imprisonment, and subsequent escape to London from Nazi-occupied France. Arthur Koestler is now an essential part of the English literary landscape both as political activist, controversialist and the author of Darkness at Noon. He stands beside George Orwell as one of the key writers of the twentieth century who embraced communism but would later turn against the partyand denounce the tragic distortions and abuses that had betrayed the great vision.

In this masterly synthesis, Arthur Koestler cuts through the sterile distinction between 'sciences' and 'humanities' to bring to life the whole history of cosmology from the Babylonians to Newton. He shows how the tragic split between science and religion arose and how, in particular, the modern world-view replaced the medieval world-view in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. He also provides vivid and judicious pen-portraits of a string of great scientists and makes clear the role that political bias and unconscious prejudice played in their creativity.

První díl autobiografie Arthura Koestlera zachycuje dětství, dospívání a mládí pozdějšího slavného autora. Koestler čtenáře provádí pozoruhodnými prostředím Budapešti v době Komuny v roce 1919, Vídně po první světové válce, kde kralují buršácké spolky a Sigmund Freud, a poté čerstvě osídlované Palestiny. Ukáže mu poválečnou Paříž a Berlín za Výmarské republiky, načež se s ním vydá k severnímu pólu. Koestler vše provází pozoruhodnými reflexemi, nejistotami svého dětství a úvahami zralé dospělosti. Líčí v knize svůj...