A Martian Stranded on Earth: Alexander Bogdanov, Blood Transfusions, and Proletarian Science

摘要

Nikolai Krementsov University of Chicago Press 192 pp. $35 (2011) We sometimes forget that the Russian revolution convulsed science as well as society. Now philosopher of science Nikolai Krementsov gives a portrait of a Bolshevik scientist at the epicentre of that revolution. A political rival to Lenin, Alexander Bogdanov was a physician, philosopher and sci-fi writer. Krementsov sketches a rounded picture of a polymath who set up the world's first institute for blood-transfusion research and whose philosophical work laid the foundations of systems theory.