In 1770, tensions were high between the American colonists and their British rulers. Anxious soldiers confronting an angry mob precipitated the Boston Massacre. Eight soldiers were then put on trial for murder. The lawyer John Adams was a strong American patriot, yet he took on the defense of the British soldiers. His purpose was explicitly […]
Revolutionary justice: French versus American style Read More »
Strong words from Heine’s 1834 History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany: “The life-history of Immanuel Kant is difficult to write, for he had neither a life nor a history. He lived a mechanical, orderly, almost abstract, bachelor life, in a quiet little side-street of Königsberg, an old city near the north-east boundary of Germany.
Heine on Kant and Robespierre as terrorists Read More »
The satirist, poet, and radical Heinrich Heine described poet Alfred de Musset as “a young man with a great future behind him.” Ouch. Musset never forgave him. Heine is known to have fought in at least ten duels in his life. One wonders why. Heine also said this of Kant, describing his clockwork walks along
The Department of Great Putdowns: Heine on de Musset and Kant Read More »
5/31 Two recent takes on contemporary intellectual culture: In the Chronicle, Michael Kimmel reviews several trendy novels in the “comic cartoon [is] the form best suited to illuminate our age”: “To speak truthfully and insightfully today you must have a sense of the absurdity of human life and endeavour. Past attempts to construct grand and
Worth Reading for May 2006 Read More »