Abstract

This collection of translations is interesting, useful, and enjoyable. It introduces a philosophy little known in either English or the Western world. Russian Cosmism was a progressive movement in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Russia. It was an intellectual counter to the rational Futurism that would eventually take hold as the guiding functionalist art and scientific ideology of the Soviet Union. Cosmism sought to understand the totality of human civilization with the universe as the basic unit of analysis. Sunspots, cosmic rays, and interstellar interactions with planet Earth could and did have an impact on human societies and political, economic, social, and artistic structures. It may seem...