This book by Christopher Coker, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, examines the spiritual processes experienced by contemporary Europe and Western civilisation as a whole. Declaring that ‘the West has exhausted its creative possibilities’, the author tries to understand why this has happened and what should be done to overcome the current difficulties. The history of the West, according to Coker, is first and foremost the history of ideas, and the ability to philosophise is the main sign of the West’s cultural vitality. The author considers one of the principal obstacles to Russia’s entry into the community of Western powers to be the weakness of its humanities and, consequently, the narrowness of its cultural horizons: ‘Russia was distinguished from the West by the absence not so much of a liberal tradition as of a philosophical tradition… Russia’s problem lies in its deep self-absorption’. It is impossible to overcome this weakness by means of heedless Westernisation: Russia must open itself to universal values, but at the same time, while modernising the country, it is necessary to ‘preserve its uniqueness, not to level it’. The West, in turn, will also have to reconsider its arrogant attitude towards other cultures, because the very survival of Western civilisation depends on the ability to synthesise and creatively comprehend external influences and challenges.