“It is difficult for us today to believe that Tolstoy was at one time regarded as the conscience of humanity, the greatest single moral force in the world during the last years of the nineteenth century. This internationally famous author of fiction who had suddenly become an advocate of a new way of life, probing fearlessly into vital moral, social, political, and artistic problems of his time, won thousands of adherents who set up organizations to carry out his beliefs…

“However one may regard Tolstoy’s often highly original views, the various problems he wrote about have a striking relevance to burning issues today: The Modernist movement in religion, war, peace and peace conferences, disarmament, non-violence, underprivileged people, colonialism, civil liberties and civil disobedience, capital punishment, governmental coercion, alcoholism, the perils of smoking, and mass art. Perhaps we have something to learn from his abrasive ideas and uncompromising stands on such matters. At least one thing we may learn is the little progress that has been made over the last sixty or more years in solving these problems...”

-From the Introduction by Ernest J. Simmons