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humanities 455 Ruud and Stepanov are at their best in their chapter on Beilis, the Jewish worker infamously tried and acquitted in 1913 for the alleged ritual murder of a Christian boy. They argue persuasively that Beilis's arrest and trial, though clearly rooted in anti-Semitism, did not grow out of a deliberately anti-Semitic state policy. Rather, the arrest was a consequence of immediate security concerns, intended to quash threatened anti-Semitic protests on the eve of Tsar Nicholas I's visit to Kiev in 1911. The state proceeded with the trial, despite Beilis's almost certain acquittal, because it feared that failure to prosecute might lead to large-scale anti-Jewish demonstrations and even pogroms. Unfortunately, the authors often seem to choose subjects for their case studies that are more sensational than they are valuable in elucidating secret police functions. For example, they rehash the ever-popular story of Rasputin, the Siberian peasant who undermined tsarist legitimacy in its waning days through his influence over Tsarina Alexandra. Ruud and Stepanov offer little that is new about Rasputin, while overstating his role in the collapse of the tsarist government and implying that it was causal rather than simply a symptom of decline. By comparison, the important subject of secret police investigations of radicals, during the war years leading up to the Revolutions of 1917, is all but ignored. The stories that Ruud and Stepanov narrate are colourful and entertaining , but the supporting arguments are frequently thin and sometimes contradictory . Chapter 5, on the Foreign Service, focuses on the flamboyant P.I. Rachkovsky, head of the Okhranka's Foreign Agency from 1884 to 1902. They describe Rachkovsky as `the consummate security professional' who `stands out for wresting twenty years of valuable service from several very effective agents.' In 1894 he was even `instrumental in bringing France and Russia together in an entente.' Yet, in the brief conclusion to a chapter that focuses extensively on Rachkovsky's exploits, we are left with the puzzling judgment that `only a self-promoting director such as Rachkovsky even claimed much success for the Foreign Agency' on the counter-revolutionary front. If Fontanka 16 is to find an audience, it likely will be a popular rather than scholarly one. Despite the sometimes awkward syntax (perhaps resulting from a too-literal translation from the Russian) and far too many typographical errors, this well-bound volume with its attractive dust cover and colourful subject matter might well appeal to some readers. Unfortunately , it has limited value to specialists who seek insight into the role and effects of tsarist secret policing. (JOHN STAPLES) Bernard Linsky. Russell's Metaphysical Logic Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications. viii, 150. US $22.95 Between 1910 and 1913, the mathematician Alfred North Whitehead and 456 letters in canada 1999 the philosopher Bertrand Russell published three enormous tomes entitled Principia Mathematica. Page after page of these awe-inspiring volumes contains not a word of English, instead consisting of densely printed lines of what my old philosophy teacher in Edinburgh used to called `hooks and squiggles.' The stated aim of the book is to derive all of mathematics using only the austere apparatus of mathematical logic. Logic flourishes today as never before, being a favourite tool of computer scientists and mathematicians, as well as a popular way of torturing students of philosophy (analytic philosophers holding it to be good for the philosophical digestion, a kind of intellectual castor oil). The three huge blue-bound volumes of the Principia still sit on the shelves of many philosophy collections, but are more admired than read these days. What are they all about? What on earth do all those hooks and squiggles stand for? Bernard Linsky has undertaken to tell us. Linsky's aim is not so much to expound the logical details of Whitehead and Russell's logical classic as to ferret out the metaphysical presuppositions of Russell, largely responsible for the philosophical aspects of the collaboration. Russell is notorious for having continually changed his views on philosophical matters, a habit that has made him unpopular with most commentators, since they prefer philosophers who never changed their minds, or changed them at...

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