the most romantic and Promethean of roles. He was the awakener of human hopes.

In exile he has written increasingly about the problems of Western culture. His Modernity on Endless Trial (1990) and Freedom, Fame, Lying and Betrayal: Essays on the Everyday (1990) are rich in substance, yet humane and often humorous in tone.

Some of Kolakowski's recent writings have been seen as a powerful alternative to the triumph of post-modernism and its deconstruction of the idea of truth. One reviewer wrote:

His defense of the human instinct for the transcendent -- which is, again, the defense of a philosopher writing from "within" the tradition of modern, critical western thought -- has been an important challenge to the stifling secularism that is so frequently encountered in the contemporary academy...[which] ignores theexperience of the overwhelming majority of humankind.

The process that led to the selection of Leszek Kolakowski for the Kluge Prize began more than two years ago with a solicitation of nominations from more than 2,000 individuals world-wide: presidents or directors of universities, colleges, and institutions of advanced research and a wide variety of eminent scholars who were in a position to assess outstanding work in the humanities and social sciences. These nominations and others were reviewed by a number of other scholars; curatorial specialists in the Library of Congress provided bibliographies and materials by and about nominees; and, in September 2002, the Library's Council of Scholars conducted its review. Outside reviewers versed in particular fields, disciplines, cultures and languages were consulted and wrote evaluations throughout the process.

The final