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Yugoslavia After Tito: Scenarios And Implications. By Gavriel D. Ra'anan. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1977. xiv, 206 pp. $14.50.

In his book, Gerson Sher presents a sympathetic and thorough treatment of the dissenting Yugoslav Marxist intellectuals who came together around the journal Praxis during its short precarious existence in 1964-75. Basing their critiques on the writings of "the young Marx," these philosophers and social scientists—centered primarily in Zagreb and Belgrade university communities—engaged in ideological combat with the state and party in an effort to further humanize Yugoslav socialism. As Sher points out, they thus fostered "a heresy within a heresy." The opening chapter provides an organizational profile of the journal and considers the critical philosophical antecedents to the Praxis dissenters. Sher indicates that they were actually part of an ongoing tradition of criticism and that they viewed themselves as a legitimate continuation of the Yugoslav revolution. Succeeding chapters discuss the specific points of departure in the Praxis critiques and trace the history of the journal. Praxis initially carried largely theoretical commentary, and in 1969, because of its subject matter and chronic economic difficulties, it languished. Thereafter, a revitalized Praxis stepped up its criticism of socialism in practice, but it never overcame its financial problems. The journal's publication was underwritten by the state, and the withdrawal of support and the continued official harassment of the members of the Praxis group finally brought its activities to a halt. Sher attempts to put the Praxis experience into perspective with other facets of Yugoslav dissent—Djilas, Mihajlov, radical students, and so forth—but he does not fully succeed. Neither does he offer any substantial criticism of the Praxis critiques. He also concentrates on the domestic edition of Praxis and generally neglects its foreign counterpart. Nevertheless, Sher has produced an important book which is well written and documented with English, Serbo-Croatian, and other sources and interviews with many of the principals involved.