This book, first published in 1998, became an Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn award winner and also received the Lomonosov award. The philosopher and political scientist Alexander Panarin (1940-2003) contemplates the key problems of Russia"s past, present, and future in the context of her contradictory relationship with Western Civilization. In opposition to current pessimistic theories he suggests his original theory of an emerging postindustrial society with spiritual, cultural, and ecological priorities, and shows the Russian place in and contribution to a new civilization. He analyzes the cycles of Russian history, paradigms of her statehood, and self-identity, and he offers his geopolitical scenario for the early 21st century. Also available by the same author: Reformy i Kontrreformy Rossii (1996); Rossiiskaia Intelligentsiia v Mirovykh Voinakh i Revoliutsiiakh XX Veka (1998); Rossiia v Tsiklakh Mirovoi Istorii (1999); Global"noe Politicheskoe Prognozirovanie v Usloviiakh Strategicheskoi Nestabil"nosti. (1999); Pravoslavnaia Tsivilizatsiia v Global"nom Mire (2002).