In addition to being a historian of British communism, the late Samuel (founding editor, History Workshop Journal) also grew up its milieu and was a member of the Communist Party at the height of its influence in British Politics. Writing for the New Left Review in the mid-1980s, some 30 years after he had left the party, Samuel published a series of essays that painted a nostalgic, if not uncritical, portrait of the communist party milieu. His treatment drew on party archives and his own memories to reflect on matters ranging from political and doctrinal disputes to the inner lives of party cadres. In many ways, the resulting collection of essays is as much a cultural anthropology of British communism and a memoir of a lost world as it is a political history. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)