A Martian Stranded on Earth

“This book is a fascinating piece of not just archival but also intellectual detective work, linking experimental blood transfusions, utopian science fiction, and revolutionary politics in the life work of Lenin’s old rival. Krementsov’s recovery of the significance of proletarian science, for Bogdanov and more generally, deserves to be considered by scholars from many disciplines.”

“A Martian Stranded on Earth is the only major work on Bogdanov that fully treats his diverse activities (as revolutionary, ideologist, philosopher, physician, scientist, organization theorist, administrator, and novelist) as richly interconnected. Bogdanov emerges as a consistent, coherent thinker who explored his ideas in a wide range of venues. This is a splendid little gem of a book.”­­—Mark B. Adams, University of Pennsylvania

“Nikolai Krementsov has written a fascinating and substantial book that brings together the specialized topic of blood transfusion and the enormous subject of societal revolution. Transformation through transfusion became a nostrum for overcoming the ‘Soviet exhaustion’ of party leaders and the extension of life itself. The demise of Alexander Bogdanov’s scheme of ‘blood exchange’ was a result both of the scientific weakness of the project itself and the decline of Soviet utopian dreams.”

“Bogdanov was a central figure in the political and scientific revolutions of his day—as Lenin’s rival for power, a writer of science fiction, and a visionary biologist. In this readable and compelling tale, Krementsov draws upon rich archival sources to use Bogdanov’s adventures with blood transfusion as the axis of an original and synthetic account not only of a fascinating figure but of the politics, science, and medicine of revolutionary Russia.”