Heidegger's Life and Thought: A Tarnished Legacy [Paperback]

Martin Heidegger was a captivating and controversial philosopher, known for his highly original and challenging philosophical concepts, as well as his association with  and sympathy for  the Nazi Party during World War II.Providing an introduction to both the man and his philosophy, this book is a concise, jargon-free journey through his life and thought.

The publication of Heideggers private Black Notebooks from the 1930s and 40s has led to renewed interest in the relationship between Heideggers philosophy and his political views and caused widespread confusion and condemnation. This short book puts many of these problems into context and offers an honest appraisal of Heideggers disturbing political views and how they might relate to some of the perennial themes that occupied his philosophical imagination.

A fascinating portrait of a brilliant, complicated and often unattractive human being, the book will prove invaluable for students with some familiarity with Heideggers thought, students approaching Heideggers work for the first time and non-specialists looking to acquaint themselves with a great, yet problematic, twentieth century thinker.

As one would expect of a work that performs the task of a scholarly introduction, much of what OBrien has to say about the details of Heideggers writing is cursory or compressed, but this is admirably done. What is most impressive, though, are the occasions where OBrien is able to offer genuinely subtle and careful readings of a few select passages of Heideggers work. The Review of Politics

While squarely facing Heideggers troubling political attitudes and personal flaws, Mahon OBrien shows that one of the most original and creative philosophers to have livelS2