The National Book Award–winning translation of Valéry’s singular novel, a strange and powerful philosophical exploration of human consciousnessPaul Valéry was obsessed with exploring the conscious mind, and it was this preoccupation that produced the unusual masterpiece of modern fiction that is Monsieur Teste. Although not autobiographical in any usual sense, Valéry’s only novel is a profoundly personal book, a portrait of a character whose mind is shown ...

A collection of Valéry writings on politics and international affairsPaul Valéry was deeply interested in politics and actively involved in international affairs as a spokesperson for the League of Nations and as France’s representative to two of the League’s bodies—the Committee on Intellectual Co-operation and the Permanent Committee on Arts and Letters. This volume presents some sixty of Valéry’s essays, addresses, and other writings—spanning from 1895 to 1945—i...

An informal dialogue of ideas in which Valéry paints a witty portrait of himselfOffhand, personal, and amusing, Paul Valéry’s Idée Fixe is an informal imaginative dialogue of ideas in which two men vacationing at the sea seek refuge from boredom by engaging in intellectual banter about human nature, the mind, and the haphazard relationship between humans and the world. Since the first-person speaker is unmistakably Valéry, the dialogue is perhaps more than...

Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal, which in successive editions contained all of his published poems, has opened new vistas for man's imagination and quickened the sensibilities of poets everywhere.The greatest French poet of the 19th century, Baudelaire was also the first truly modem poet, and his direct and indirect influence on the literature of our time has been immeasurable.Flowers of Evil: A Selection contains 53 poems which the editors fee...

A new translation of Simone Weil's best-known work: a political, philosophical and spiritual treatise on what human life could beWhat do humans require to be truly nourished? Simone Weil, one of the foremost philosophers of the last century, envisaged us all as being bound by unconditional, eternal obligations towards every other human being. In The Need for Roots, her most famous work, she argued that our greatest need was to be rooted: in a community, a ...

A panoramic history of rules in the Western worldRules order almost every aspect of our lives. They set our work hours, dictate how we drive and set the table, tell us whether to offer an extended hand or cheek in greeting, and organize the rites of life, from birth through death. We may chafe under the rules we have, and yearn for ones we don’t, yet no culture could do without them. In Rules, historian Lorraine Daston traces their development in the Weste...

For more than a decade, Clear and Simple as the Truth has guided readers to consider style not as an elegant accessory of effective prose but as its very heart. Francis-Noël Thomas and Mark Turner present writing as an intellectual activity, not a passive application of verbal skills. In classic style, the motive is truth, the purpose is presentation, the reader and writer are intellectual equals, and the occasion is informal. This general style of presentation is at home everywhe...

Hailed by Andre Gide as the patron saint of all outsiders, Simone Weil's short life was ample testimony to her beliefs. In 1942 she fled France along with her family, going firstly to America. She then moved back to London in order to work with de Gaulle. Published posthumously The Need for Roots was a direct result of this collaboration. Its purpose was to help rebuild France after the war. In this, her most famous book, Weil reflects on the importance of religious and political ...

James Harvey Robinson (1863 – 1936) was an American historian, who co-founded New History, which greatly broadened the scope of historical scholarship in relation to the social sciences. Robinson endeavored to reform the modern study of history, making it relevant and useful to contemporary peoples. A quintessential Progressive, he combined astute in erudite thinking with a penchant for activism in order to challenge his professional colleagues' "obsolete" conception of history and to demo...

An original reflection on shame as the central feeling of our age — the expression of an anger that is the necessary condition for new strugglesCan shame become a source of political strength? Faced with injustice, growing inequality and systemic violence, we cry out in shame. We feel ashamed of obscene wealth amid wider deprivation. We feel ashamed of humanity for its ruthless and relentless exploitation of the earth. We feel ashamed of the racism and sexism that ...

"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."--Immanuel KantIsaiah Berlin was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century--an activist of the intellect who marshaled vast erudition and eloquence in defense of the endangered values of individual liberty and moral and political plurality. In The Crooked Timber of Humanity he exposes the links between the ideas of the past and the social and political cataclysms of our own time:...

Henri Frédéric Amiel was a Swiss moral philosopher, poet, and critic. Born in Geneva in 1821, he was descended from a Huguenot family driven to Switzerland by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. After losing his parents at an early age, Amiel travelled widely, became intimate with the intellectual leaders of Europe, and made a special study of German philosophy in Berlin. In 1849 he was appointed professor of aesthetics at the academy of Geneva, and in 1854 became professor of moral phi...