Thanks to the recent publication of Engineers of Human Souls, I got to discuss censorship, free speech and modern China with journalist Yuan Yang and philosopher Jeffrey Howard when Rana Mitter hosted Radio 3’s Free Thinking on 19 March 2024. The programme is available on BBC Sounds.
ENGINEERS OF HUMAN SOULS is an intimate and shocking group portrait of four novelists whose political ambitions shaped a century.
Ings gives his readers a concise round-up of the intellectual ground in which the twentieth-century dictatorships took root. He has a talent for succinct statements so well turned that they immediately ring true … His openings are arrestingly quirky. He cleverly leaves out the boring bits to offer the reader a staccato sequence of telling vignettes. His tone – by turns breezy and bitterly sardonic – is engaging … Rather than plod through the welter of historical facts, he skips lightly from resonant incident to ringing quotation. His put-downs are trenchant, his asides witty, his exposition of political theory is clear and concise … his book is enlightening and surprisingly entertaining.
Lucy Hughes-Hallett, New Statesman, 24 January 2024
Ings is a pretty unusual individual and the perfect guide to this peculiar selection of odd and ambitious writers. He has tremendous range and moves at speed: he’s the sort of writer so bursting with energy and ideas that it’s sometimes difficult to keep up. He tosses out incidental remarks and insights at an extraordinary rate… and there are brilliant novelistic flourishes throughout as he frantically blurs the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. There’s enough material in the vignettes alone for about four different books. Instead, we get just this one wild ride.
Ian Sansom, Spectator, 17 February 2024
Maurice Barrès, who first wielded the politics of identity. Gabriele D’Annunzio, whose poetry became a blueprint for fascism. Maxim Gorky, dramatist of the working class and Stalin’s cheerleader. The Maoist Ding Ling, whose stories exculpated the regime that kept her imprisoned.
Each writer nursed an extravagant vision of the future. All four were lured to the centre of political action, where they created the blueprints and practices that sustained notorious regimes.
These stories –- of courage and compromise, vanity and malevolence – speak urgently to the uncontrollable power of words.
Eight days in St Petersburg, anyone?
From 27 August 2021 and 8 October 2021 I’ll be joining New Scientist’s tours round the city and its many sites of scientific interest, offering talks and walking seminars with architectural historian Andrew Spira and local guides.
Here are some details, and you can speak to an expert to book on +44 (0)20 7251 0045.
At 1.30pm on Thursday 28 September, I’ll be bringing Stalin and his scientists to New Scientist Live at the Excel in London. Further details here.
On 16 August at 2pm I’ll be bringing Stalin’s scientists to the Edinburgh International Book Festival. More details here.
He ended up on this island in this rather beautiful part of the country, on a very beautiful lake with the Ural Mountains in the background and flowers awaiting him on his doorstep—and far in the distance, men with dogs and some barbed wire.
I talk to Marina Koren of The Atlantic about the Soviet Union’s system of special prisons.
On Sunday 11 June at 2.00pm I’ll be at the York Festival of Ideas, talking about Stalin and his scientists.
May contain nuts.
Admission is free. Further details here.
At 3pm on Sunday April 30 I’ll be chatting to Neil Denny about Stalin and his scientists – part of Little Atoms’s first literary festival at Waterstones Piccadilly. More details here.
The Stratford-upon-Avon Literary Festival have invited me to talk about Stalin and the Scientists on Saturday 29 April at 3.15pm at the Stratford Artshouse.
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