In Nausea, the 1938 novel that made Sartre famous, the protagonist is a historian who abandons the biography he is writing because he comes to believe that all histories are fictional, escapist, and useless. He sought the one and only truth of history; a truth that would revolutionize the world. By the time Sartre published his most mature works, he claimed to have written a biography that was perfectly true. This book examines how and why Sartre's position on the possibility and worth of historical knowledge changed so dramatically. In addition, it illuminates Sartre's unique contribution to...

Machiavelli has been viewed as the forerunner of the humanists of our day, liberals and socialists, who have discovered that moral ends sometimes require immoral means. Against this interpretation, Mark Hulliung argues that Machiavelli's "humanism," was rooted in classical notions of grandeur and greatness, and that his prime reason for admiring the ancient Roman republic was that it conquered the world. In short, Machiavelli was at his most Machiavellian precisely when he voiced his "civic humanism." Hulliung argues that Machiavelli's embrace of fraud and violence cannot be justified by...

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976.