Jump to content

User:Hydrangeans/draft of The Visionaries

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Visionaries
AuthorWolfram Eilenberger
Original titleFeur Der Freiheit: Die Rettung der Philosophie in finsteren Zeiten, 1933–1943
TranslatorShaun Whiteside
GenreIntellectual history
Published
Pages386
ISBN9780241537374

The Visionaries, variously subtitled Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Salvation of Philosophy and Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times, is a 2023 non-fiction book written by German philosopher Wolfram Eilenberger [de] and translated into English by Shaun Whiteside. Originally published in German as Feur Der Freiheit ("Fire of Freedom"), the book is an intellectual history that follows the lives and thought of Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand and Simone Weil during the 1930s and early 1940s.

[]

Background

[edit]

[]

Publication

[edit]

Eilenberger's book was originally published in German by Klett-Cotta [de] as Feur Der Freiheit, meaning "Fire of Freedom".[1] Shaun Whiteside translated the book from German into English.[2] In 2023, Allen Lane and Penguin published it in English, respectively, as The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Salvation of Philosophy and The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times, each sold upon release for £25 (GBP) and $32 (USD).[3] The book is 386 pages long and includes illustrations.[4]

Content

[edit]

The Visionaries is an intellectual history and group biography[a] that follows the lives and thought of four writers during the 1930s and early 1940s: Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand and Simone Weil.[7] An underlying theme of the book is how the four writers, in different ways, articulated the value of individualism during a time when forms of social organization that seemed to undermine individuality were ascendant, like fascism, communism, and capitalism.[8] In Eilenberger's words, the four questioned and explored "the importance of other people for one's own life" while often coming to drastically different conclusions.[9]

The book is organized in eight sections which are further subdivided into subtitled subsections, each a few pages long.[6]

[]

The book's concluding section briefly narrates Arendt's, Beauvoir's, and Rand's accomplishments after 1943.[6]

Reception

[edit]

[]

The Financial Times acknowledged the transcendent connotations of the English title, The Visionaries, but argued that the German title "Fire of Freedom" better captured the book's "idea that it was by squaring up to the true horror of their times that these women were able to think about what freedom meant".[10]

The Sunday Times considered Arendt "the least fleshy of all" four leads.[11] According to the Goethe-Institut, Rand "can sometimes feel short-changed" compared to the others.[12] The American Scholar called Rand "the philosophical joker in this deck of remarkable individuals" whose philosophical vision, while captivating, lacked the nuance of those of her co-protagonists and was "as unwavering as it was unappealing".[13]

Editions

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ The Observer and Goethe-Institut called it a "group biography" and "collective biography" respectively.[5] The Open Letters Review stated that while The Visionaries "isn’t a group biography, it can fill that role for those who aren’t inclined to seek out the definitive books on each woman".[6]

Citations

[edit]
  1. ^ Austin (2024, p. 63); Updegraff (2024).
  2. ^ Bray (2023, p. 39).
  3. ^ Economist (2023).
  4. ^ Szalai (2023).
  5. ^ Jeffries (2023); Updegraff (2024).
  6. ^ a b c Canfield (2023).
  7. ^ Horner (2023, p. 44).
  8. ^ Horner (2023, p. 44); Szalai (2023).
  9. ^ Publishers Weekly (2023, p. 113).
  10. ^ Stonebridge (2023).
  11. ^ Hackett (2023, p. 20).
  12. ^ Updegraff (2024).
  13. ^ Zaretsky (2023, p. 119).

Reviews

[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Hydrangeans/draft_of_The_Visionaries&oldid=1258442264"