There have been in the past fifty years numerous poets and novelists who have sounded off about current affairs with a confidence that has often been in inverse proportion to their knowledge, just as there have been academics and publicists who have tried their hands at fiction or literary criticism or even a book of verse. It is rare for a man to be accepted by his fellows as an imaginative writer and, at the same time, as an authority on political matters. During the past thirty years Robert Conquest has established a reputation in a wide variety of fields: as a commentator on Soviet affairs, a poet, a novelist, a literary critic, an anthologist, and an editor. At first sight there may seem few connections between his writings in these various genres. His poems seldom deal overtly with political themes, just as his prose writings are as...