Description

"Johnson revels in all the wicked things these great thinkers have done...great fun to read."  — New York Times Book Review

A fascinating portrait of the minds that have shaped the modern world. In an intriguing series of case studies, Rousseau, Shelley, Marx, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Brecht, Sartre, Edmund Wilson, Victor Gollancz, Lillian Hellman, Cyril Connolly, Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Kenneth Tynan, and Noam Chomsky, among others, are revealed as intellectuals both brilliant and contradictory, magnetic and dangerous.

About the Author

Paul Johnson is a historian whose work ranges over the millennia and the whole gamut of human activities. He regularly writes book reviews for several UK magazines and newspapers, such as the Literary Review and The Spectator, and he lectures around the world. He lives in London, England.

Praise For…

"Johnson revels in all the wicked things these great thinkers have done...great fun to read." — New York Times Book Review

“Here’s a book that should have a cleansing influence on Western literature and culture for years to come.” — Malcolm Forbes, Forbes

“So full of life and energy and fascinating detail, and so right for the moment, that anyone who picks it up will have a hard time putting it down.” — Norman Podhoretz, New York Post