Emerson and Self-Reliance (Modernity and Political Thought)

During much of his life in the early 1800s, Ralph Waldo Emerson was considered as a radical thinker. His opposition to established religious opinion and to slavery was scandalous. It was Emerson's deep commitment to individualism that is at the root of his disdain. His articulation of individualism is constant, whether aimed against the group mind or institutional constrictions. Kateb has written this book to bring Emerson into our conception of modernity. Kateb gives a reading of Emerson which is friendly to the interests of Nietzsche and to later Nietzscheans including Weber, Heidegger, Arendt and Foucault.