Imperfect Garden
Subtitle: The Legacy of Humanism
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: May 1, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9780691010472
Subjects: History of ideas, intellectual history; Humanist & secular alternatives to religion; Topics in philosophy; Social values; Individualism; Philosophy; Movements - Humanism; European History; Philosophy / Humanism; Humanism; France; History
First sentence: A revolution took place in the mind of Europeans - a slow revolution, since it took several centuries - which led to the establishment of the modern world.
Description: "Imperfect Garden is both an approachable intellectual history and a bracing treatise on how we should understand and experience our lives. In it, one of Europe's most prominent intellectuals explores the foundations, limits, and possibilities of humanist thinking. Through his critical but sympathetic excavation of humanism, Tzvetan Todorov seeks an answer to modernity's fundamental challenge: how to maintain our hard-won liberty without paying too dearly in social ties, common values, and a coherent and responsible sense of self." "Placing the history of ideas at the service of a quest for moral and political wisdom, Todorov's compelling and no doubt controversial rethinking of humanist ideas testifies to the enduring capacity of those ideas to meditate on - and, if we are fortunate, cultivate - the imperfect garden in which we live."--BOOK JACKET.