What Is to Be Done?

Why it’s on the list: Chernyshevsky wrote it in a cell in the Peter and Paul Fortress in 1863; it became the formative novel of Russian revolutionary politics — Lenin borrowed its title — and the book Dostoevsky wrote Notes from Underground against.

Where I saw it: A bare Amazon link saved in the note.

Connections

• Ideological Family Tree — the portfolio idea this sits closest to: a novel that became a political program.
• Russia — the setting and the tradition.