The Ego and His Own (Large Print Edition) - Softcover

Stirner, Max

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1496001761 ISBN 13: 9781496001764

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

LARGE PRINT EDITION! More at LargePrintLiberty.com.

Credited with influencing the philosophies of Nietzsche and Ayn Rand and the development of libertarianism and existentialism, this prophetic 1844 work challenges the very notion of a common good as the driving force of civilization. By examining the role of the human ego, author Max Stirner chronicles the battle of the individual against the collective — showing how, throughout history, the latter invariably leads to oppression.

Stirner begins with a study of the individual ego and then traces its subjugation from ancient times to the nineteenth century. Nothing escapes his indictment: the ancient philosophers, Christianity, monarchism, the bourgeois state; all have fettered individuals with laws, morality, and obligations. Revolutions expunge one evil only to replace it with another, and Stirner predicted — years before the publication of Marx's Manifesto — that socialism would climax in the ultimate totalitarian state.

For students of political science and philosophy, this book is essential reading. For those concerned about the encroachment of authority upon individual liberty, Stirner articulates a philosophy that remains unsurpassed in its scope.

About this title

Review

"The most revolutionary book ever published ... [Stirner] has left behind him a veritable Breviary of Destruction, a striking and dangerous book. It is dangerous in every sense of the word--to socialism, to politicians, to hypocrisy. But it asserts the dignity of the Individual, not his debasement." --"New York Times"
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"You will have heard of Stirner's book, "The Ego and His Own" ... And it is certainly true that we must first make a cause our own, egoistic cause ... we are communists out of egoism also, and it is out of egoism that we wish to be human beings, not mere individuals." --Friedrich Engels to Karl Marx, 19 November 1844

About the Author

Max Stirner was a German philosopher who is often seen as one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism, and anarchism.

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1496001761
• ISBN 13: 9781496001764
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280
• Editor: Tucker Benjamin R.