Natan Yakovlevich Eidelman (1930–1989) was a leading researcher of Russian history and culture, beloved by many generations of readers for his invaluable contribution to the study and popularization of the history of the 18th–19th centuries. This book includes the author’s works devoted both to the evolution of his main characters’ views—Pushkin, Karamzin, Herzen—and to the formation of the worldviews of their antagonists. One of the most engaging narratives in the book is the story of a renegade—“the loudmouthed liberal” Leontiy Dubelt—who began close to the Decembrists, and later became one of the most zealous defenders of the Nicholas regime. The book ends with a prophetic analysis of the history of Russian reforms, from the era of Peter the Great to perestroika. “Revolution from Above in Russia,” written in 1989, became Eidelman’s political and historiosophical testament—he, foreseeing his imminent departure, hurried to pass on to society on the threshold of new radical changes both his hopes and his fears about its future.