This collection of Brodsky's essays displays the full range of interests; poetic, literary, political and historical. Essays on writers deal with Akhmatova, Tsvetneva and Madlestam, as well as western poets like Auden, Montale, Cavafy and Derek Walcott. In Catalogues in the Art, Brodsky addresses the history and future of Russian prose, and in On Tyranny and Flight from Byzantium, he offers meditations on history and the modern age.