
Time of the Magicians
Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade that Reinvented Philosophy
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Narrated by:
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Rhett Samuel Price
“[A] fascinating and accessible account.... In his entertaining book, Mr. Eilenberger shows that his magicians’ thoughts are still worth collecting, even if, with hindsight, we can see that some performed too many intellectual conjuring tricks.” (Wall Street Journal)
A grand narrative of the intertwining lives of Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Ernst Cassirer, major philosophers whose ideas shaped the 20th century
The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians, each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Benjamin is trying to flee his overbearing father and floundering in his academic career, living hand to mouth as a critic. Wittgenstein, by contrast, has dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he stands to inherit, in search of spiritual clarity. Meanwhile, Heidegger, having managed to avoid combat in war by serving as a meteorologist, is carefully cultivating his career. Finally, Cassirer is working furiously on the margins of academia, applying himself to his writing and the possibility of a career at Hamburg University.
The stage is set for a great intellectual drama, which will unfold across the next decade. The lives and ideas of this extraordinary philosophical quartet will converge as they become world historical figures. But as the Second World War looms on the horizon, their fates will be very different.
©2020 Wolfram Eilenberger (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
“[T]his comprehensive and well-informed treatment deserves credit for bringing four major philosophers down from the heights of abstraction.” (Publishers Weekly)
"[Eilenberger] patiently draws these four intellectual magi out of the shadows of their writings, which often tend toward complete opacity. The result is not a book of academic philosophy but rather an intellectual history that largely succeeds in bringing philosophy to life." (The New York Times Book Review)
"Wolfram Eilenberger’s survey of high thoughts and low politics among German-language philosophers of the 1920s is a salutary tale for today, not just a gripping panorama of century-old dreams and feuds.... Eilenberger shows flair in knitting complex ideas into the fabric of his sages’ lives and times." (The Economist)
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Solid book with lousy narrator
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dense content, terrible narration
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Comically awful narration.
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There is also quite some divergence is style: Benjamin is treated with lots of (rather uninteresting) personal details - his life lacks systemization, his works as well, and the author is unable to explain why his works are so important that he deserves to be treated on the same level also Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Cassirer.
In addition, Heidegger is treated with too much reverence, expressed for one thing by not translating some of his German, as if this cannot be expressed properly in English. So the mumbo-jumbo of Dasein & Angst is repeated as if it was Arabic in the Quran or some holy text.
The descriptions of the thoughts of Wittgenstein and Cassirer are better - for me that of Cassirer taught me a lot. Also that he is simply not half as important as W and H, and thus: worthy to be treated in same level?! In these times, Husserl, Russell, members of the Wiener Kreiss were all highly active - any of them could have raised the level of this book.
In short: perhaps nice for some superficial biographical details (about the love live of some of these men), but if that is not your interest, then you’re better off with some other philosophical biographies.
Incoherent collection of 4 philosophers
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Excellent book, appalling narrator
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Detailed exploration of the decade
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WAR
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The translation seemed very fluid, with no awkward phrases that are so common in other German books in translation.
The narration was close to perfect and significantly added to my understanding of the book. I’m not at all sure I would have been able to read it in print, but the narration kept me fascinated. The narrator does mispronounce some German and other foreign words, but his narration is so good, I could overlook them
I loved it!
A brilliant, entertaining, enlightening book
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Face cross-examination of 4 representative voices
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Magnificent
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