Finland’s precarious proximity to Russia makes this small country a unique and revealing study in contemporary social and economic patterns. The author demonstrates that “in spite of Finland’s deep-rooted cultural kinship with Scandinavia…new factors, often political in nature, have affected the development of society very differently in each of these countries.” One of the most decisive differences, as his book makes clear, is the position of the Communist party in Finnish politics. In this first English book on the Finnish situation, Carl Erik Knoellinger makes perceptive analyses of detailed data on the varied aspects of his subject.