A new essay collection by the noted Polish poet For Adam Zagajewski—one of Poland’s great poets—the project of writing, whether it be poetry or prose, is an occasion to advance what David Wojahn has characterized as his “restless and quizzical quest for self-knowledge.” Slight Exaggeration is an autobiographical portrait of the poet, arranged not chronologically but with that same luminous quality that distinguishes Zagajewski’s spellbinding poetry—an affinity for the invisible. In a mosaic-like blend of criticism, reflections, European history, and aphoristic musings, Zagajewski tells the stories of his life in glimpses and reveries—from the Second World War and the occupation of Poland that left his family dispossessed to Joseph Brodsky’s funeral on the Venetian island of San Michele—interspersed with intellectual interrogations of the writers and poets (D. H. Lawrence, Giorgos Seferis, Zbigniew Herbert, Paul Valéry), composers and painters (Brahms, Rembrandt), and modern heroes (Helmuth James Graf von Moltke) who have influenced his work. A wry and philosophical defense of mystery, Slight Exaggeration recalls Zagajewski’s poetry in its delicate negotiation between the earthbound and the ethereal, “between brief explosions of meaning and patient wandering through the plains of ordinary days.” With an enduring inclination to marvel, Zagajewski restores the world to us—necessarily incomplete and utterly astonishing.

From his appearance on the streets of Nuremberg in 1828 to his disturbing murder only five years later, the enigmatic story of Kaspar Hauser has stirred feelings of love and admiration in countless people. He has been celebrated as the subject of films and plays, popular books and academic studies, yet even today – almost two hundred years after his death – he continues to arouse opposition and hatred from his detractors, who dismiss him as an opportunist and a fraud. In the first English-language edition of this classic text – the original, comprehensive attempt to illumine the mysterious life of Kaspar Hauser from a spiritual-scientific, anthroposophical perspective – historian Karl Heyer gathers the basic facts of the life and death of the ‘Child of Europe’, exploring his remarkable abilities and character. With impressive clarity, he goes on to study Hauser’s fate in relation to the mission and destiny of Middle Europe, focusing on the roles of the House of Baden and key political actors such as Napoleon and Otto von Bismarck. His original research leads to some shattering conclusions with significant consequences for Europe’s future. Heyer was initially drawn to the subject through a private conversation with Rudolf Steiner. That seed matured forty years later into intensive research and the first publication of this book in German in 1958. ‘For me’, said Heyer, ‘it represented the high point of my writing and a kind of crowning of my life’s work.’

This book contains the first English translations of The Origin of the Moral Sensations and Psychological Observations, the two most important works by the German philosopher Paul Rée. These essays present Rée’s moral philosophy, which influenced the ideas of his close friend Friedrich Nietzsche considerably. Nietzsche scholars have often incorrectly attributed to him arguments and ideas that are Rée’s and have failed to detect responses to Rée’s works in Nietzsche’s writings. Rée’s thinking combined two strands: a pessimistic conception of human nature, presented in the French moralists’ aphoristic style that would become a mainstay of Nietzsche’s own writings, and a theory of morality derived from Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Rée’s moral Darwinism was a central factor prompting Nietzsche to write On the Genealogy of Morals and the groundwork for much of today’s “evolutionary ethics.” In an illuminating critical introduction, Robin Small examines Rée’s life and work, locating his application of evolutionary concepts to morality within a broader history of Darwinism while exploring Rée’s theoretical and personal relationship with Nietzsche. In placing Nietzsche in his intellectual and social context, Small profoundly challenges the myth of Nietzsche as a solitary thinker.

In nahezu allen Gesellschaften und Epochen ist das Heroische vielfach gegendert. Die soziale und kulturelle Produktion des Heroischen ist jedoch nicht ausschließlich mit dem Instrumentarium der Männlichkeitsforschung zu fassen, und ebenso wenig scheint es sinnvoll, Frauen bzw. Weiblichkeit in diesem Zusammenhang lediglich als Ausnahmen zu verstehen. Vielmehr gilt es, den relationalen Charakter ernst zu nehmen. Der vorliegende Band unternimmt erstmals den Versuch, Geschlecht als analytische Kategorie für die Heroismusforschung fruchtbar zu machen. Auf der Basis vielfältiger geisteswissenschaftlicher Ansätze dient diese Kategorie als 'Spurensucherin' (tracer) des Heroischen und als Instrument zur Untersuchung der historischen Bedingungen, medialen und performativen Erscheinungsformen sowie zeiträumlichen Konjunkturen und Transformationen. Diese gilt es, mit Hilfe der Kategorie Geschlecht und unter Nutzung der zugehörigen Eigenschaften neu auszumessen.

Philosopher and psychologist William James was the best known and most influential American thinker of his time. The five books and nineteen essays collected in this Library of America volume represent all his major work from 1902 until his death in 1910. Most were originally written as lectures addressed to general audiences as well as philosophers and were received with great enthusiasm. His writing is clear, energetic, and unpretentious, and is marked by the devotion to literary excellence he shared with his brother, Henry James. In these works William James champions the value of individual experience with an eloquence and enthusiasm that has placed him alongside Emerson and Whitman as a classic exponent of American democratic culture. In The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) James explores “the very inner citadel of human life” by focusing on intensely religious individuals of different cultures and eras. With insight, compassion, and open-mindedness, he examines and assesses their beliefs, seeking to measure religion’s value by its contributions to individual human lives. In Pragmatism (1907) James suggests that the conflicting metaphysical positions of “tender-minded” rationalism and “tough-minded” empiricism be judged by examining their actual consequences. Philosophy, James argues, should free itself from unexamined principles and closed systems and confront reality with complete openness. In A Pluralistic Universe (1909) James rejects the concept of the absolute and calls on philosophers to respond to “the real concrete sensible flux of life.” Through his discussion of Kant, Hegel, Henri Bergson, and religion, James explores a universe viewed not as an abstract “block” but as a rich “manyness-in-oneness,” full of independent yet connected events. The Meaning of Truth (1909) is a polemical collection of essays asserting that ideas are made true not by inherent qualities but by events. James delights in intellectual combat, stating his positions with vigor while remaining open to opposing ideas. Some Problems of Philosophy (1910) was intended by James to serve both as a historical overview of metaphysics and as a systematic statement of his philosophical beliefs. Though unfinished at his death, it fully demonstrates the psychological insight and literary vividness James brought to philosophy. Among the essays included are the anti-imperialist “Address on the Philippine Question,” “On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake,” a candid personal account of the 1906 California disaster, and “The Moral Equivalent of War,” a call for the redirection of martial energies to peaceful ends, as well as essays on Emerson, the role of university in intellectual life, and psychic research. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Dating from 1919 to 1940, these letters and telegrams are being published for the first time in English in their entirety. They manage to capture the essence of Tagore and Rolland’s friendship in their struggle with the conflict between nationalism and human conscience. This volume also presents three important conversations the two engaged in at various points in time, as well as letters by Rathindranath Tagore and others, and lays out the journey of these two writers towards the imaging of a different world outside jingoistic politics. This correspondence presents the finest exchange of thought between the East and the West, and scripts the intellectual history of early twentieth century.