A lucid and fluent account of George Orwell's political thought that complicates and challenges the commonplace view and shows how Orwell's fiction allows us to address some of the most fundamental problems of Western political thought, and how literature can be a source of political understanding. [A] perceptive study of George Orwell... Almost 70 years after his death, Orwell's two most important fictions, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, are more relevant than ever... This study allows us to understand him better.