The Spirit of Utopia PDF

Other editions
Enlarge cover
Want to Read saving
Error rating book. Refresh and try again.
Rate this book
Clear rating
1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
Open Preview

See a Problem?

Wed love your help. Let us know whats wrong with this preview of The Spirit of Utopia by Ernst Bloch.
Problem: Its the wrong book Its the wrong edition Other
Details [if other]:
Cancel

Thanks for telling us about the problem.

Return to Book Page
Not the book youre looking for?

Preview The Spirit of Utopia by Ernst Bloch

The Spirit of Utopia

by
3.85 · Rating details· 88 ratings · 7 reviews
I am. We are.

That is enough. Now we have to start.

These are the opening words of Ernst Bloch's first major work, The Spirit of Utopia, written mostly in 1915-16, published in its first version just after the First World War, republished five years later, 1923, in the version here presented for the first time in English translation.

The Spirit of Utopia is one of the great h
I am. We are.

That is enough. Now we have to start.

These are the opening words of Ernst Bloch's first major work, The Spirit of Utopia, written mostly in 1915-16, published in its first version just after the First World War, republished five years later, 1923, in the version here presented for the first time in English translation.

The Spirit of Utopia is one of the great historic books from the beginning of the century, but it is not an obsolete one. In its style of thinking, a peculiar amalgam of biblical, Marxist, and Expressionist turns, in its analytical skills deeply informed by Simmel, taking its information from both Hegel and Schopenhauer for the groundwork of its metaphysics of music but consistently interpreting the cultural legacy in the light of a certain Marxism, Bloch's Spirit of Utopia is a unique attempt to rethink the history of Western civilizations as a process of revolutionary disruptions and to reread the artworks, religions, and philosophies of this tradition as incentives to continue disrupting.

The alliance between messianism and Marxism, which was proclaimed in this book for the first time with epic breadth, has met with more critique than acclaim. The expressive and baroque diction of the book was considered as offensive as its stubborn disregard for the limits of "disciplines." Yet there is hardly a "discipline" that didn't adopt, however unknowingly, some of Bloch's insights, and his provocative associations often proved more productive than the statistical account of social shifts.

The first part of this philosophical meditationwhich is also a narrative, an analysis, a rhapsody, and a manifestoconcerns a mode of "self-encounter" that presents itself in the history of music from Mozart through Mahler as an encounter with the problem of a community to come. This "we-problem" is worked out by Bloch in terms of a philosophy of the history of music. The "self-encounter," however, has to be conceived as "self-invention," as the active, affirmative fight for freedom and social justice, under the sign of Marx. The second part of the book is entitled "Karl Marx, Death and the Apocalypse."

I am. We are. That's hardly anything.

But enough to start.

...more

Get A Copy

  • Amazon
  • Stores
    Audible
    Barnes & Noble
    Walmart eBooks
    Apple Books
    Google Play
    Abebooks
    Book Depository
    Alibris
    Indigo
    Better World Books
    IndieBound
    Thriftbooks
  • Libraries
Paperback, 320 pages
Published August 1st 2000 by Stanford University Press [first published 1918]
More Details...
Original Title
Geist der Utopie
ISBN
0804737657 [ISBN13: 9780804737654]
Edition Language
English
Other Editions [8]
All Editions | Add a New Edition | Combine
...Less Detail Edit Details

Video liên quan

Chủ Đề