The Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) remains a towering figure in the annals of modern anarchism, but his reputation (perhaps not surprisingly) has often been attacked by both capitalists and Marxists who have often portrayed him as an unserious thinker merely wedded to "terrorism." In this sympathetic but not uncritical intellectual biography, Leier (director, Centre for Labour Studies, Simon Fraser U., Canada) attempts to rescue a more nuanced and complex picture of the man who asserted that "the passion for destruction is a creative passion," describing the evolution of his political philosophy and setting it in the context of the great upheavals of the mid-19th century and the often vituperative debates between the anarchists and the followers of Marx. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)