Existentialism For Beginners (Paperback)

~ (Author), Joe Lee (Illustrator)

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Product Description

Existentialism For Beginners is a lighthearted romp through the history of a philosophical movement that had broad-reaching influence on Western culture, politics and the arts during the period of mid-19th century through the late 20th century, and still exerts influence in the 21st century. Tracing its beginning with close-up views of seminal 19th century writers like Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, Existentialism For Beginners follows the trail of existential thought and literature through 20th century German philosophers Jaspers and Heidegger, and finally through to the flowering of the movement in Postwar France brought forth by Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir and beyond.
With dazzling, gritty illustrations Existentialism For Beginners takes an affectionate, good-humored look at a style of thinking that, while pervasive in influence, has often been seen as obscure, difficult, cryptic and dark. Existentialism For Beginners helps to draw the movement’s many diverse elements together to create a palatable introduction for people who have always had difficulty defining or understanding existentialism, and an enjoyable historical review packed with richly fascinating quotes from existentialism’s most notable purveyors for those who are already appreciators of existentialism.

About the Author

David Cogswell is a writer based in Hoboken, N.J. He has written thousands of articles on business, travel, politics, and the arts for various print and online publications, including Online Journal, Democratic Underground, Bushwatch, Indymedia.org, Fortune.com, Travel Weekly, the Hudson Current and the Jersey Journal. He’s the author of Chomsky For Beginners, and has contributed pieces to a number of political books, including Fortunate Son: The Making of an American President, by J.H. Hatfield; Ambushed: The Hidden History of the Bush Family by Toby Rogers; and America’s Autopsy Report, by John Kaminski. He is currently working on a book about corporatism.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: For Beginners (October 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934389218
• ISBN-13: 978-1934389218
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #286,778 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Existential Smorgasboard, October 24, 2008

By	Beirne Konarski (Memphis, TN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Existentialism for Beginners provides an overview of the existential philosophy, told mostly through the lives of its adherents. The book starts with an introduction to existentialism and provides some basic statements of the problems that Existentialism is trying to solve and some of the core ideas. The book then describes the lives and thoughts of various existential philosophers, starting in the 1800s. The existentialists that I'm familiar with are Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus, but Cogswell draws from a wider pool than these. He does discuss how people have looked so hard for existential thought in philosophers who wrote long before the term existed that the term has lost a lot of meaning. He strikes a good balance, though, in his choice of existentialists to write about, and by starting in the 1800s we get a good historical background to the 1900s.

Cogswell writes a bit about each philospher's life, describing their background and the aspects of their life that led them to their philosophy. He also includes passages of their writing. Along with their philosophy he discusses some of the rivalry and the relationships between the different philosophers, with the most interesting being between Sartre and Camus and Sartre and de Beauvoir. My favorite existential philosopher is Camus, and the book did a good job of describing his life and ideas.

The book doesn't end with French existentialism, though, It goes on to discuss other ones, such as Ortega y Gassett. It then discusses how Existentialism became part of modern society, in movies, theater, art, music, and politics. While the famous existentialists are dead, the philosophy lives on. Cogswell suggests that one can pretty much pick a modern movie at random and find Existential themes. I know I've always thought Gilligan's Island was an existential story, for example, so now I'll have to try applying this to other movies.

The book works well as an introduction to existentialism, which is of course what it professes to be. It covers a lot of different areas of the philosophy and from there one can pick the specific areas of existentialism or the philosophers themselves that they wish to look into. I think I'll read The Rebel next.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good summary, October 8, 2009

By	Dr. John Laughlin (Glenn Dale, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a well done introduction of to a very complex subject. Cogswell covers all of the main contributors to the field of existentialism, even those in litterature, psychology and art. I found some philosphers easier to grasp than others, as for example, the incomprehensible Hegel,Husserl and Dilthey compared to the exciting Kierkgaard, Camus, Rilke and Piercy. This is the best a book like this can offer and it serves its purpose if it gets you to explore authors you might be interested in but whose subject matter seemed too intimidating.