Her beauty brought her fame, her seduction made her dangerous, and her vengeance made her deadly. An exotic dancer who captivated Belle Époque Paris, she was known as 'Mata Hari,' meaning "Eye of the Dawn" in Malay. Her performances, filled with tales of lust, jealousy, and passion, enthralled the public. However, during World War I, she was accused by the French of espionage for the Germans, using her allure to extract military secrets from influential men. Mata Hari remains a symbol of f...

The last words of an individual are often very interesting and an eye-opener. Even in courts of law, dying statements are of special significance based upon the general belief that most people who know that they're about to die "do not lie". Death is not an isolated event and needs to be understood in the backdrop of the entire life escape of an individual. My books, under the "Last Words Series", are, therefore, in a format in which the dying moments of the subjects, along with t...

"Here lies one whose name was writ in water". This is the phrase the English Romantic poet Keats desired to be inscribed on his tombstone. Just this phrase; he did not even want his name to appear on his tombstone; merely this line. Keats wanted simply the above phrase on his tombstone for by the time his death was near, he was embittered with life and believed he would soon be forgotten. But, contrary to it, more than two hundred years after his death, he is still remembered as o...

Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman PrizeParis, near the turn of 1932-3. Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking…‘It’s not often that you miss your bus stop because you’re so engrossed in reading a book about existentialism, but I did exactly that... The...

Philosophy for busy people. Read a succinct account of the philosophy of Sartre in just one hour.Here is a concise, expert account of Jean-Paul Sartre’s life and philosophical ideas – entertainingly written and easy to understand. Also included are selections from Jean-Paul Sartre’s work, suggested further reading, and chronologies that place Sartre in the context of the broader scheme of philosophy.

“A skilled exploration” of why 6 notable 20th-century philosophers—from Martin Heidegger to Michel Foucault—succumbed to “a narcissistic embrace of totalitarian politics” (The Washington Post).European history of the past century is full of examples of philosophers, writers, and scholars who supported or excused the worst tyrannies of the age. How was this possible? How could intellectuals whose work depends on freedom defend those who would deny it? Here,...

From the author of Wittgenstein's Poker and Would You Kill the Fat Man?, the story of an extraordinary group of philosophers during a dark chapter in Europe's historyOn June 22, 1936, the philosopher Moritz Schlick was on his way to deliver a lecture at the University of Vienna when Johann Nelböck, a deranged former student of Schlick's, shot him dead on the university steps. Some Austrian newspapers defended the madman, while Nelböck himself argu...

PROSE Award for Excellence in Biography and Autobiography Finalist 2020“One is not born a woman, but becomes one”, Simone de BeauvoirA symbol of liberated womanhood, Simone de Beauvoir's unconventional relationships inspired and scandalised her generation. A philosopher, writer, and feminist icon, she won prestigious literary prizes and transformed the way we think about gender with The Second Sex. But despite her successe...

**“A marvelous book. It’s gossipy and personal and completely fascinating...cafe gossip with the footnotes left in.”— New York Times“A superbly engrossing adventure of ideas...this will surely be my philosophy book of the year.” —Sarah Bakewell, New York Times bestselling author of Humanly PossibleFrom leading critic and essayist Emily Eakin, a stylish personal history of French theory and its unlikely domination of American culture**When ...

The renowned psychoanalyst and New York Times –bestselling author of The Art of Loving examines the creator of psychoanalysis and his followers."A psychologically convincing and balanced picture of Freud the man, and his background." —Bruno BettelheimWith his creation of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud redefined how people relate to themselves and to the ...

Simone de Beauvoir’s account of the last ten years of Jean-Paul Sartre’s life provides a focus for understanding one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century. But the book, consisting of both a year-by-year account of Sartre’s last decade and a conversation between him and de Beauvoir about his life and work, is more than just a philosophical examination. It is also a personal dialogue of astonishing frankness that illuminates one of the most famous and complex relationships of th...