File:Huxley Perennial Philosophy coverblurb1946 Low Res.jpg

The Perennial Philosophy, a book by Aldous Huxley, was marketed by the publishers (Chatto and Windus in the UK, 1st Edition 1946) as a dramatic "attempt to present this Highest Common Factor of all theologies by assembling passages from the writings of those saints and prophets who have approached a direct spiritual knowledge of the divine" ... "In this profoundly important work, Mr. Huxley ... provides us with an absolute standard of faith by which we can judge both our moral depravity as individuals and the insane and often criminal behaviour of the national societies we have created" (quotations from book's cover, shown in the uploaded image). The publisher's point of view shows the social and moral context (recent defeat of the Nazis) of the book and is discussed in the article.

The book was first published in the USA, so it was being marketed to an American and then a British audience, and it was the immediate post-war audience with its strong reaction to war, political ideologies (especially national socialism, alluded to in the cover blurb by the phrase "national societies") that the publishers hoped would buy the book. The assumptions made on the book's cover - that the audience could accept being told of its personal "moral depravity", of "faith", of the "criminal behaviour" of nations - may well seem dated now, but help to explain the nature of the book. Hence the image is necessary to the article.

The image is a scan of the cover's dust jacket that I made today, reduced to low resolution.

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