Humanism Is a Frail Craft: On Sarah Bakewell’s “Humanly Possible”
Robert Zaretsky reviews Sarah Bakewell’s “Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope.”
Robert Zaretsky teaches in the Honors College at the University of Houston. His books include Nîmes at War: Religion, Politics, and Public Opinion in the Gard, 1938–1944 (1994), Cock and Bull Stories: Folco de Baroncelli and the Invention of the Camargue (2004), Albert Camus: Elements of a Life (2010), Boswell’s Enlightenment (2015), A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning (2013), and Catherine and Diderot: The Empress, the Philosopher, and the Fate of the Enlightenment (2019). His newest book is Victories Never Last: Reading and Caregiving in a Time of Plague.
Robert Zaretsky reviews Sarah Bakewell’s “Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope.”
Robert Zaretsky is invigorated by Michael Ignatieff’s “On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times.”
Robert Zaretsky unmasks the continuing relevance of Molière.
Robert Zaretsky admires the aesthetic and moral clarity of Laura Marris’s new translation of Camus’s “The Plague.”
Robert Zaretsky reflects on the life and work of French philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch, and the supernatural nature of true forgiveness.
Robert Zaretsky explores love in the time of the pandemic through the life and ideas of Stendhal.
Simone de Beauvoir’s advice to the lovelorn.
A rich and rewarding study of political leadership in the 18th and 19th centuries.