The God That Failed
A Philosophy, Essays, Writing book. Persuasion may play a part in a man's conversion; but only the part of bringing to...
The God That Failed is a classic work and crucial document of the Cold War that brings together essays by six of the most important writers of the twentieth century on their conversion to and subsequent disillusionment with communism. In describing their own experiences, the authors illustrate the fate of leftism around the world. Andre Gide (France), Richard Wright (the United States), Ignazio Silone (Italy), Stephen Spender (England), Arthur Koestler (Germany), and Louis Fischer, an American foreign correspondent, all tell how their search for the betterment of humanity led them to communism, and the personal agony and revulsion which then caused them to reject it. David Engerman's new foreword to this central work of our time recounts the tumultuous events of the era, providing essential background. It also describes...
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- Filetype: PDF
- Pages: 272 pages
- ISBN: 9780231123952 / 231123957
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More About The God That Failed
Persuasion may play a part in a man's conversion; but only the part of bringing to its full and conscious climax a process which has been maturing in regions where no persuasion can penetrate. A faith is not acquired; it grows like a tree. Arthur Koestler, The God That Failed // that man is a reality, mankind an abstraction; that men cannot be treated as units in operations of political arithmetic because they behave like the symbols for zero and the infinite, which dislocate all mathematical operations; that the end justifies the means only within very narrow limits; that ethics is not a function of social utility, and charity not a petty bourgeois sentiment but the gravitational force which keeps civilization in its orbit. Arthur Koestler, The God That Failed // For the intellectual, material comforts are relatively unimportant. Richard Crossman, The God That Failed //
Very interesting collection of essays by 6 writers explaining how they got involved with Communism, then rejected it, in the 1930s. Most of the pieces were written expressly for this collection, Andre Gide's was compiled from his earlier writings about Communism and his experience touring the USSR. I especially liked Richard Wright's... This looks good...but my priorities are drifting elsewhere. This book contains the stories (written by themselves) of six individuals who strongly and openly embraced Communism, and later came to see its tragic and evil flaws. They write of the difficulty and the psychological pain involved in revising their world view. Of the six,... We are easily duped by political ideologies, the consequences of which are life altering. Being a Hungarian myself, and having lived under Communism, I was riveted to read Arthur Koestler's autobiographical essay on him joining forces with Leftist ideologues and then finding out the true nature of those "gods." A must read for our times!...
