Herbert Read was a gadfly by profession, but eventually he was swallowed by the human tendency to view the struggles of the past as gradually subsiding as time provided new areas of contention. When I read this collection, Read was being given the amused acceptance by the literary establishment, which mere survival awards to some. His criticism of the American and western European bias of the literary life of the time, driven by the cold war, had led to denial of some of the good writing being created in the Soviet bloc. Things are better today. ( )