Within the pages of 'Oration on Voltaire,' readers will discover a masterful collection that navigates the intricate spectrum of literary tribute, criticism, and celebration, drawn from the vibrant tradition of 19th-century literary discourse. This anthology showcases an array of oratorical styles, reflective of its era, each binding the threads of rational enlightenment with the emotional resonance of Romanticism. Through their meticulous selection, the editors offer a panoramic view of V...

“It is childish to suppose that a hundred books can be named as those which are the best for each and every one. The simplest experience of the world proves that a work of great excellence may deeply move one person, while it leaves another untouched; and that a book which has influenced one strongly in one's youth may lose such influence over one's later years. There is practically nothing that every man can read at every time...” (Georg Brandes)

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig (translated from the German by Benjamin W. Huebsch and Helmut Ripperger, introduction by Harry Zohn, a chronology of Stefan Zweig's life, bibliography of works by and about Stefan Zweig in English by Randolph Klawiter; 156,000 words and 34 illustrations)This Plunkett Lake Press eBook is produced by arrangement with Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.The World...

These fascinating, never-before-published early diaries of Count Harry Kessler—patron, museum director, publisher, cultural critic, soldier, secret agent, and diplomat—present a sweeping panorama of the arts and politics of Belle Époque Europe, a glittering world poised to be changed irrevocably by the Great War. Kessler’s immersion in the new art and literature of Paris, London, and Berlin unfolds in the first part of the diaries. This refined world gives way to vivid descriptions of the ...

Friedrich Reck might seem an unlikely rebel against Nazism. Not just a conservative but a rock-ribbed reactionary, he played the part of a landed gentleman, deplored democracy, and rejected the modern world outright. To Reck the Nazis were ruthless revolutionaries in Gothic drag, and helpless as he was to counter the spell they had cast on the German people, he felt compelled to record the corruptions of their rule. The result is less a diary than a sequence of stark and astonishing snapsh...

A brilliant brief account of romanticism and its influence from one of the most important philosophers and intellectual historians of the twentieth centuryIn The Roots of Romanticism, one of the twentieth century's most influential philosophers dissects and assesses a movement that changed the course of history. Brilliant, fresh, immediate, and eloquent, these celebrated Mellon Lectures are a bravura intellectual performance. Isaiah Berlin surveys the many...

The first book of criticism from the acclaimed author of After Babel—a "provocative and probing" look at Russian literature's most influential writers ( The New York Times)."Literary criticism," writes Steiner, "should arise out of a debt of love." Abiding by his own rule, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky is an impassioned work, inspired by Steiner's conviction that the legacies of these two Russian masters loom over Western literature. By explaining...

Married to Stefan Zweig by Friderike Zweig (translated from the German by Erna McArthur, with an introduction by Helen Epstein, a chronology of Stefan Zweig's life and a bibliography of works by and about Stefan Zweig in English by Randolph Klawiter; 104,000 words and 22 illustrations)An essential companion piece to Stefan Zweig's classic The World of Yesterday, this memoir addresses many of the questions that this internationally celebrated author raised but did n...

"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." This ancient Greek aphorism, preserved in a fragment from the poet Archilochus, describes the central thesis of Isaiah Berlin's masterly essay on Leo Tolstoy and the philosophy of history, the subject of the epilogue to War and Peace. Although there have been many interpretations of the adage, Berlin uses it to mark a fundamental distinction between human beings who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things ...

'I am not a man, I am dynamite.' Ecce Homo is an autobiography like no other. Deliberately provocative, Nietzsche subverts the conventions of the genre and pushes his philosophical positions to combative extremes, constructing a genius-hero whose life is a chronicle of incessant self-overcoming. Written in 1888, a few weeks before his descent into madness, the book sub-titled 'How To Become What You Are' passes under review all Nietzsche's previous works so that w...

With a revised foreword by Brookings President Strobe Talbott and a new introduction by Berlin’s editor, Henry Hardy.George Kennan, the architect of US policy toward the Soviet Union, called Isaiah Berlin the patron saint among the commentators of the Russian scene.” In The Soviet Mind, Berlin proves himself fully worthy of that accolade. Although the essays in this book were originally written to explore the tensions between Soviet communism and Russian culture, the thin...

These pro-Nazi speeches by the author Being and Time are collected here to demonstrate the truly dark and shameful turn taken by the eminent philosopher."On the day of German Labor, on the day of the Community of the People, the Rector of Freiburg University, Dr. Martin Heidegger, made his official entry into the National Socialist Party." And so begins one of the most controversial texts available today. Heidegger, a German Nationalist and proud Nazi, thor...