Arguably one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, according to Joseph Pearce, has too often been stereotyped as a prophet of doom, a pessimist, someone out of touch with reality, and irrelevant. Pearce sets out to challenge this typical media typecasting: Solzhenitsyn as "paradox personified: the pessimistic optimist." He shows how Solzhenitsyn's Christian faith brought him to the truth that shines so clearly in all his writing: that "creeping knowledge that human history may be little more than a long defeat in a land of exile