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An enthralling intellectual adventure, starring the four women who
created new ways of thinking from the ruins of totalitarianism and
war The year is 1933. Hannah Arendt escapes Berlin, seeking refuge
among the stateless gathering in Paris. Simone de Beauvoir
reimagines the dance between consciousness and the world outside in
a Rouen café. Ayn Rand labours in Hollywood exile on the novel she
believes destined to reignite the flame of liberty in her adoptive
nation. Simone Weil, disenchanted with the revolution's course in
Russia, devotes her entire being to the plight of the oppressed.
Over the next decade, one of the darkest in Europe's history, these
four philosophers will conceive in parallel ideas that would circle
the globe in the second half of the century, reshaping it. The
Visionaries follows in its protagonists' footsteps from Leningrad
to New York, Spain at civil war to France under occupation, as each
is uprooted by totalitarianism's ascendence. It shows them facing
the injustices, unfreedom and unfathomable violence of their time
as women, refugees, activists, resistance fighters - but above all
as thinkers. Wolfram Eilenberger expertly distils the radical
philosophies each lived as well as created, showing the two to be
part of the same story, all testament to the redemptive power of
thought.
"[A] fascinating and accessible account . . . In his entertaining
book, Mr. Eilenberger shows that his magicians' thoughts are still
worth collecting, even if, with hindsight, we can see that some
performed too many intellectual conjuring tricks." -Wall Street
Journal A grand narrative of the intertwining lives of Walter
Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Ernst
Cassirer, major philosophers whose ideas shaped the twentieth
century The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is
fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians, each of whom
finds himself at a crucial juncture. Benjamin is trying to flee his
overbearing father and floundering in his academic career, living
hand to mouth as a critic. Wittgenstein, by contrast, has
dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he
stands to inherit, in search of spiritual clarity. Meanwhile,
Heidegger, having managed to avoid combat in war by serving as a
meteorologist, is carefully cultivating his career. Finally,
Cassirer is working furiously on the margins of academia, applying
himself to his writing and the possibility of a career at Hamburg
University. The stage is set for a great intellectual drama, which
will unfold across the next decade. The lives and ideas of this
extraordinary philosophical quartet will converge as they become
world historical figures. But as the Second World War looms on the
horizon, their fates will be very different.
AN ECONOMIST, GUARDIAN AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR A
gripping narrative of the intertwined lives of the four
philosophers whose ideas reshaped the twentieth century The year is
1919. Walter Benjamin flees his overbearing father to scrape a
living as a critic. Ludwig Wittgenstein, scion of one of Europe's
wealthiest families, signs away his inheritance, seeking spiritual
clarity. Martin Heidegger renounces his faith and aligns his
fortunes with Husserl's phenomenological school. Ernst Cassirer
sketches a new schema of human culture on a cramped Berlin tram.
The stage is set for a great intellectual drama. Over the next
decade the lives and thought of this quartet will converge and
intertwine, as each gains world-historical significance, between
them remaking philosophy. Time of the Magicians brings to life this
miraculous burst of intellectual creativity, unparalleled in
philosophy's history, and with it an entire era, from post-war
exuberance to economic crisis and the emergence of National
Socialism. With great art, Wolfram Eilenberger traces the paths of
these titanic figures through the tumult. He captures their
personalities as well as their achievements, and illuminates with
singular clarity the philosophies each embodied as well as
espoused. It becomes an intellectual adventure story, a captivating
journey through the greatest revolution in Western thought told
through its four protagonists, each with their own penetrating gaze
and answer to the question which has animated philosophy from the
very beginning: What are we?
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