R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life offers a new, highly faithful translation by Štěpán Šimek of Czech novelist, playwright, and critic Karel Čapek´s 1920 play R.U.R. (Rosssum´s Universal Robots), as well aw twenty essays by contemporary writers on the play and the issues it raises. R.U.R. is perhaps best known for coining the term ?robot? (in Czech, robota means serfdom or arduous drudgery).