A signature work was "Confessions of a Disloyal European", published in original English in 1968 though in large part based on the merger of two previous Swedish books. It juxtaposes a deeply personal tragedy – a suicide that Myrdal failed to prevent – with what he views as the irresponsible political detachment of himself and other Western intellectuals ("the whores of reason"), as they fail to intervene against an impending Third World War produced by the contradictions of capitalism. In its mixing of personal and political themes and its fragmented structure, it presaged Myrdal's later "I novels." John Leonard of the New York Times described it as an "extraordinary" book and "a particularly disturbing combination of fiction, reportage and allegory," while "Kirkus Reviews" offered a more mixed opinion of what was termed a "curious document of social guilt."