A playwright, poet, and activist, Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was known for his theory of the epic theater and his attempts to break down the division between high art and popular culture. He was also a committed Marxist who lived through two world wars and a global depression. Looking at Brecht's life and works through his plays, stories, poems, and political essays, Philip Glahn illustrates how they trace a lifelong attempt to relate to the specific social, economic, and political circumstances of the early twentieth century.

Glahn reveals how Brecht upended the language and gestures of...

Swiss-born Carl Gustav Jung (18751961) was one of the pioneers of psychology, largely responsible for the introduction of now-familiar psychological terms such as introvert, extrovert, and collective unconscious. But in spite of this, Jung has often remained on the fringes of academic discourse. Seeking to understand Jung in view of not only his life, but also in light of his extensive reading and prolific writing, this new biography reclaims Jung as a major European thinker whose true significance has not been fully appreciated.
Paul Bishop follows Jung from his early childhood to his...

Denounced as a charlatan and feted as a mystic, French artist Yves Klein (192862) scandalized the art world with his enthusiastic embrace of postwar mass culture and his exploitation of controversial publicity tactics. Today, we know Yves Klein not only as one of the most radical artists of the postwar period, but also as an iconic role model for contemporary practiceshe reinvented abstract painting, conceived new horizons for performance art, and was a trailblazer in the realm of land, body, and conceptual art. In this new critical biography, Nuit Banai examines the relationship between...

The most internationally acclaimed Japanese author of the twentieth century, Yukio Mishima (1925-70) was a prime candidate for the Nobel Prize. But the prolific author shocked the world in 1970 when he attempted a coup d'etat that ended in his suicide by ritual disembowelment. In this radically new analysis of Mishima's extraordinary life, Damian Flanagan deviates from the stereotypical depiction of a right-wing nationalist and aesthete, presenting the author instead as a man in thrall to the modern world while also plagued by hidden neuroses and childhood trauma that pushed him toward his...

There are few more divisive names in history than the Soviet communist Leon Trotsky. To some, he was a betrayer, a hypocrite, and a totalitarian, and yet to many others he was a revolutionary of high esteem, who battled an outdated, oppressive dynasty and helped to usher in a new political era, and whose name became a political moniker: trotskyist. Whether colored by disdain or admiration, one thing is certain: Trotsky was one of the most important figures of the twentieth century.
In Leon Trotsky, Paul Le Blanc delves deep into Trotsky s life and relationships to reveal and make...

Winner of the Franco-British Society Literary Prize 2015
Few figures of twentieth-century French culture carry such an air of romance and intrigue as Albert Camus. Though his life was cut short by a fatal car accident in 1960, when he was just forty-six years old, he packed those years with an incredible amount of experience and accomplishment. This new entry in the Critical Lives series offers a fresh look at Camus life and work, from his best-selling novels like The Stranger to his complicated political engagement in a postwar world of intensifying ideological conflict....

Igor Stravinsky (1882 1971) was perhaps the twentieth century s most celebrated composer, a leading light of modernism and a restlessly creative artist. This new entry in the Critical Lives series traces the story of Stravinsky s life and work, setting him in the context of the turbulent times in which he lived. Born in Russia, Stravinsky spent most of his life in exile and while his work was deliberately cosmopolitan, the pain of estrangement nonetheless left its mark on the man and his work, distinguishable in an ever-present sense of loss. Jonathan Cross shows how that work emerged over...