[Rev.] Doktorov B.Z. Never Ending Chats with Classics and Contemporaries. A Practice in Historical-Biographical Analysis: Monograph / B.Z. Doktorov. Moscow: TsSPiM publ., 2018

The book reviewed in this article is the result of many years of historical-sociological and historical-biographical studies conducted by B.Z. Doktorov. It contains generalizations of certain results of analyzing biographies, while also introducing the reader to the methodology and procedure of the historical-sociological pursuit. The book was written, in the words of the author himself, in the form of a “mental dialog” with the characters of the biographical narrative; it contains methodological clarifications, as well as descriptions of the creation of the texts included within the book. It contains the author’s previously published work, dedicated to American scientists who conducted studies of public opinion (G. Gallup, H. Cantril, D. Ogilvy), as well as Russian sociologists belonging to the four eldest generations (B.A. Grushin, V.A. Yadov, T.I. Zaslavskaya, Y.A. Levada, A.N. Alekseev, V.B. Golofast, G.S. Batygin). The early activity of the first generation is associated with a period of rebirth (second generation) for Russian sociology during the 1950’s and 1960’s.This review describes the origins of B.Z. Doktorov’s interest towards the research problems; a short summary of the book is given; described is the research methodology of a generational approach; also revealed is the importance of B.Z. Doktorov’s work when it comes to the history of Russian sociology and historical-biographical studies.