The second half of the nineteenth century was an exciting time in European intellectual and social history. The period saw the growth of revolutionary activism, the rise of Darwinian evolu- tionary biology, the emergence of women's rights movements, and other challenges to established ways of thinking. Progress and change were the key words of the day, and most members of the educated classes felt confident that the future would be bright. In Russia especially, the "intelligentsia" (an amorphous, pe- culiarly Russian class of professors, writers, and thinkers) had the feeling that they were...