Voltaire
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Few figures in Western intellectual history burned as brilliantly — or as dangerously — as François-Marie Arouet, the man the world came to know as Voltaire. John E. N. Hearsey's biography chronicles the extraordinary life of the French Enlightenment's most ferocious wit and relentless champion of reason, tracing his journey from the salons of Paris and the gilded corridors of Versailles to the courts of Frederick the Great and his famous final refuge at Ferney, where he waged his lifelong war against fanaticism, superstition, and tyranny with nothing more than a pen. Hearsey presents Voltaire not merely as a historical monument but as a vivid, contradictory, and thoroughly human genius — a man capable of breathtaking compassion and cutting cruelty in equal measure. The biography illuminates the vast sweep of 18th-century Europe through the prism of one man's turbulent existence, arguing compellingly that Voltaire's campaigns for justice, religious tolerance, and freedom of speech did not merely reflect his age but actively shaped the modern world that followed. For anyone who has ever wondered how ideas can move nations, this portrait of history's most dangerous philosopher will leave them questioning everything.
Author: John E. N. Hearsey
Format: Hardback
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Few figures in Western intellectual history burned as brilliantly — or as dangerously — as François-Marie Arouet, the man the world came to know as Voltaire. John E. N. Hearsey's biography chronicles the extraordinary life of the French Enlightenment's most ferocious wit and relentless champion of reason, tracing his journey from the salons of Paris and the gilded corridors of Versailles to the courts of Frederick the Great and his famous final refuge at Ferney, where he waged his lifelong war against fanaticism, superstition, and tyranny with nothing more than a pen. Hearsey presents Voltaire not merely as a historical monument but as a vivid, contradictory, and thoroughly human genius — a man capable of breathtaking compassion and cutting cruelty in equal measure. The biography illuminates the vast sweep of 18th-century Europe through the prism of one man's turbulent existence, arguing compellingly that Voltaire's campaigns for justice, religious tolerance, and freedom of speech did not merely reflect his age but actively shaped the modern world that followed. For anyone who has ever wondered how ideas can move nations, this portrait of history's most dangerous philosopher will leave them questioning everything.