A collection of essays on the lives of eleven ‘men and women of enlightenment who have illuminated the public darkness of their age - the ‘dark times’ of which Brecht spoke in his poem To Posterity’ (from the dust jacket blurb). The subjects include Arendt’s mentor, the existential philosopher Karl Jaspers, as well as Rosa Luxemburg, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Walter Benjamin, Isak Dinesen, and Bertlot Brecht, amongst others.
