A collection of Brecht plays that deal with revolution and change. The final play in the work, Roundheads and Peakheads, was, to my surprise, written prior to the rise of Hitler, but apparently had been very revised following his rise, and was not actually released until the late 1930s, so that may explain why it had so much that recalled Hitler's ideas - the separation of groups of people, and the demonizing of one group as being inferior, and, of course, targeting the "wrong" sort. It has quite a bit in common with Dr. Seuss's Sneetches, but without the happy ending and the cheery tone. One thing about these plays - there was no evidence that Brecht saw a revolution as making things better, only that a different group of people would become tyrannical. He didn't portray the working classes as heroes, and in fact, the entire sense of the book is an overwhelming sense of pessimism about the human condition. ( )