"Schiffrin evokes the bittersweet tang of emigre life in New York." --The New York Times Book Review Andre Schiffrin was born the son of one of France's most esteemed publishers, in a world peopled by some of the day's leading writers and intellectuals, such as Andre Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Antoine de Saint-Exupery. But this world was torn apart when the Nazis marched into Paris on young Andre's fifth birthday. Beginning with the family's dramatic escape to Casablanca--thanks to the help of the legendary Varian Fry--and eventually New York, A Political Education recounts the surprising twists and turns of a life that saw Schiffrin become, himself, one of the world's most respected publishers. Emerging from the emigre community of wartime New York (a community that included his father's friends Hannah Arendt and Helen and Kurt Wolff), he would go on to develop an insatiable appetite for literature and politics: heading a national student group he renamed the Students for a Democratic Society--the SDS. leading student groups at European conferences, once, as an unwitting front man for the CIA. and eventually being appointed by Random House chief Bennett Cerf to head the very imprint cofounded by his father--Pantheon. There, he would discover and publish some of the world's leading writers, including Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault, Art Spiegelman, Studs Terkel, and Marguerite Duras. But in a move that would make headlines, Schiffrin would ultimately rebel at corporate ownership and form his own publishing house--The New Press--where he would go on to set a new standard for independent publishing. A Political Education is a fascinating intellectual memoir that tells not only the story of a unique and important figure, but of the tumultuous political times that shaped him. From the Hardcover edition"--

Born in 70 BC, in a small village near Mantua, Publius Vergilius Maro—Virgil—grew up to be hailed as the greatest Roman poet. And although his work has influenced Western literature for two millennia, little is known about the man himself. Who was the man who created the Aeneid—one of the most important poems in Western literature—and such universal phrases as “love conquers all” and “fortune favors the bold?” Peter Levi here reconstructs the poet's life, from a childhood largely shrouded in mystery to his work as a great literary genius and revolutionary poet, by examining archaeological and historical evidence from Augustan Rome, as well as through close readings of the poet's own work. “Virgil is an intensely personal poet, yet he is anonymous . . . My aim is not so ambitious as to try and restore his prestige single-handed. It has simply been to try to understand him in his original context.” In this highly acclaimed, nowclassic biography, Peter Levi discards the myths and brilliantly reveals the life of Virgil and the extraordinary times during which he lived.

In 1818, with a single essay of vast scope and stunning detail, Leopold Zunz launched the turn to history in modern Judaism. Despite unending setbacks, he persevered for more than five decades to produce a body of enduring scholarship that would inspire young Jews streaming into German universities and alter forever the understanding of Judaism. By the time of his death in 1886, his vision and labor had given rise to a historical discourse and intellectual movement that devolved into vibrant sub-fields as it expanded to other geographic centers of Jewish life. Yet Zunz was a part-time scholar, at best, in search of employment that would leave him time to study. In addition to his pioneering scholarship, he was as deeply engaged in ending the political tutelage of German Christians as the civil disabilities of German Jews. And to his credit, these commitments did not come at the expense of his loyalty to the Jewish community, which he was ever ready to serve. Zunz once quipped that "those who have read my books are far from knowing me." To complement his books, Zunz left behind a treasure trove of notes, letters and papers, documents that the distinguished scholar of German Jewish culture, Ismar Schorsch, has zealously utilized to write this, the first full-fledged biography of a remarkable man

Overview: The name Erasmus of Rotterdam conjures up a golden age of scholarly integrity and the disinterested pursuit of knowledge, when learning could command public admiration without the need for authorial self-promotion. Lisa Jardine, however, shows that Erasmus self-consciously created his own reputation as the central figure of the European intellectual world. Erasmus himself--the historical as opposed to the figural individual--was a brilliant, maverick innovator, who achieved little formal academic recognition in his own lifetime. What Jardine offers here is not only a fascinating study of Erasmus but also a bold account of a key moment in Western history, a time when it first became possible to believe in the existence of something that could be designated "European thought."--

Presents the history of the early modern Jewish experience. Ranging from Krakow and Venice to Amsterdam and Smyrna, this title examines the historical and cultural factors unique to Jewish communities throughout Europe, and how these distinctions played out amidst the rest of society.