"Aware of the "primitive delusions" that have attracted people to rogue ideologies over the past century, Robert Conquest has devoted a lifetime to exposing the political and mental distortions that have spawned or appeased implacable regimes and led, all too often, to death and destruction." "Here, in The Dragons of Expectation, whether discussing the political thinking of ancient Greece, the corrosive effect of ideological socialism, or the inanities of the European Union, Conquest assesses the ravages of our past, the absurdities of our present, and the pitfalls that lie in our future." "As Conquest observes, the early part of the sixteenth century "saw what appeared to be, or foreshadow, the rise of a tolerant order on the Continent." Yet it was not the heirs of Montaigne or Erasmus who prevailed, but the fanatics and dogmatists, whose ideas plunged Europe into a downward track with a series of internecine programs the likes of which had never been seen before."--BOOK JACKET.