"Nobel Prize laureate, Soviet political prisoner, Russian prophet and religious believer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's writing casts a large shadow over the short and terrible twentieth century. In this collection of his selected speeches, some of which are translated into English for the first time, Solzhenitsyn offers his reflections and insights about role and purpose of art, the human need for God, and the forces from both East and West that seek to destroy the human spirit. We Have Ceased to See a Purpose is essential reading for those who wish to learn from one of the giants of twentieth-century world literature and understand the line that 'separates good and evil' in 'every human heart.'" --Lee Trepanier, co-editor of Walk Away

"Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn belongs to the select category of writers who not only chronicled global events, but actually shaped them. Part of an ongoing endeavor by the University of Notre Dame Press to make the writer's legacy available to the English-speaking reader, this expertly curated collection brings together Solzhenitsyn's most important speeches. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years after they were given, they continue to have the capacity to dazzle, engage, and surprise." --Richard Tempest, author of Overwriting Chaos

"The totalitarianism from which Solzhenitsyn had escaped loomed as the West's likely future. . . . He thought it his duty to warn us, but nobody listened. Today, his warnings seem prescient." --Commentary

"This new collection of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's speeches invite a new generation of students and other readers to hear his provocative and prophetic arguments on key cultural, political, literary, and moral questions." --Matthew Lee Miller, author of The American YMCA and Russian Culture

"This welcome selection of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's most penetrating speeches appeal to, and renew, the 'sparks of the spirit' that alone offer hope in this and other troubled times." --Daniel J. Mahoney, co-editor of The Solzhenitsyn Reader