Time of the Magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade That Reinvented Philosophy

Product Description
“[A] fascinating and accessible account . . . In his entertaining book, Mr. Eilenberger shows that his magicians’ thoughts are still worth collecting, even if, with hindsight, we can see that some performed too many intellectual conjuring tricks.” —Wall Street JournalA grand narrative of the intertwining lives of Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Ernst Cassirer, major philosophers whose ideas shaped the twentieth century
The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is fresh for the protagonists of
Time of the Magicians, each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Benjamin is trying to flee his overbearing father and floundering in his academic career, living hand to mouth as a critic. Wittgenstein, by contrast, has dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he stands to inherit, in search of spiritual clarity. Meanwhile, Heidegger, having managed to avoid combat in war by serving as a meteorologist, is carefully cultivating his career. Finally, Cassirer is working furiously on the margins of academia, applying himself to his writing and the possibility of a career at Hamburg University. The stage is set for a great intellectual drama, which will unfold across the next decade. The lives and ideas of this extraordinary philosophical quartet will converge as they become world historical figures. But as the Second World War looms on the horizon, their fates will be very different.
Review
“Splendid.”
—Financial Times
“[Eilenberger] patiently draws these four intellectual magi out of the shadows of their writings, which often tend toward complete opacity. The result is not a book of academic philosophy but rather an intellectual history that largely succeeds in bringing philosophy to life.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Wolfram Eilenberger’s survey of high thoughts and low politics among German-language philosophers of the 1920s is a salutary tale for today, not just a gripping panorama of century-old dreams and feuds . . . Eilenberger shows flair in knitting complex ideas into the fabric of his sages’ lives and times.” —
The Economist
“[A] vibrant group portrait of four philosophers during a turbulent decade . . . Eilenberger is a terrific storyteller, unearthing vivid details that show how the philosophies of these men weren’t the arid products of abstract speculation but vitally connected to their temperaments and experiences.” —
Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
“[A] fascinating and accessible account . . . In his entertaining book, Mr. Eilenberger shows that his magicians’ thoughts are still worth collecting, even if, with hindsight, we can see that some performed too many intellectual conjuring tricks.” —
The Wall Street Journal
“A group portrait of four brilliant young philosophers in the aftermath of the first world war . . . Eilenberger tells it with free-wheeling gusto.”
—The Guardian
“A tremendous feat of scholarship, but more pertinently it is also a technical masterpiece, knitting together the four men's love lives, money troubles, ontological anxieties and the wider ferment of the Weimar republic with uncommon dexterity.”
—The Times (London)
“Eilenberger weaves together the biographies and the developing thought of the four philosophers with great bravura and wit. We get a strong sense of their thought emerging as a response to the enveloping chaos of the time, when all the old certainties were crumbling . . . It’s a riveting read that sheds light on a crucial period in European history and thought, with some uncanny parallels to our own time.”
—The Telegraph
“Eilenberger clearly lays out the evolving theories of each philosopher for a non-specialist audience, embedding the philosophical discussion in their often-dramatic professional and romantic lives and the rapidly evolving social worlds that they shared. The result is an engrossing history which also acts as an introduction to post-WWI Europe