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The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times
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About This Book
A soaring intellectual narrative starring the radical, brilliant, and provocative philosophers Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Ayn Rand by the critically acclaimed author of Time of the Magicians , Wolfram Eilenberger The period from 1933 to 1943 was one of the darkest and most chaotic in human history, as the Second World War unfolded with unthinkable cruelty. It was also a crucial decade in the dramatic, intersecting lives of some of history's greatest philosophers. There were four women, in particular, whose parallel ideas would come to dominate the twentieth century—at once in necessary dialogue and in striking contrast with one another. Simone de Beauvoir, already in a deep emotional and intellectual partnership with Jean-Paul Sartre, was laying the foundations for nothing less than the future of feminism. Born Alisa Rosenbaum in Saint Petersburg, Ayn Rand immigrated to the United States in 1926 and was honing one of the most politically influential voices of the twentieth century. Her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged would reach the hearts and minds of millions of Americans in the decades to come, becoming canonical libertarian texts that continue to echo today among Silicon Valley's tech elite. Hannah Arendt was developing some of today's most important liberal ideas, culminating with the publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism and her arrival as a peerless intellectual celebrity. Perhaps the greatest thinker of all was a classmate of Beauvoir' Simone Weil, who turned away from fame to devote herself entirely to refugee aid and the resistance movement during the war. Ultimately, in 1943, she would starve to death in England, a martyr and true saint in the eyes of many. Few authors can synthesize gripping storytelling with sophisticated philosophy as Wolfram Eilenberger does. The Visionaries tells the story of four singular philosophers—indomitable women who were refugees and resistance fighters—each putting forward a vision of a truly free and open society at a time of authoritarianism and war.
Reviews
"illuminates the times through which these philosophers developed their ideas – and vice versa – often drawing poignant parallels and discontinuities between the women."
"In his enjoyable book, Eilenberger manages to convey not only his characters' complicated lives but the convoluted flow of their endlessly agitated minds ..."
"I would have appreciated a little more direction."
"All four women walked on the outside of power, politics, and philosophy, which is why their vision of what the world had become by the middle of the 20th century is so acute."
"Though Eilenberger could sometimes weave the narrative's various threads together more seamlessly, his energetic, multilayered group portrait reveals that these celebrated thinkers were real people whose ideas, as contradictory as they may seem, developed in response to shared social or political circumstances."
"While never quite providing a cohesive rationale for joining these four disparate writers together, Eilenberger offers solid insight into a center-minded way of thinking applicable to each ..."
"Eilenberger is an energetic guide to these philosophers' ideas, though it's clear that he holds Weil's writings in special esteem."
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