The Politics of Authenticity: Radical Individualism and the

The Politics of Authenticity: Radical Individualism and the Emergence of Modern Society

In this acclaimed exploration of the search for â€œauthenticâ€ individual identity, Marshall Berman explores the historical experiences and needs out of which this new radicalism arose. Focussing on eighteenth-century Paris, a time and place in which a distinctively modern form of society was just coming into its own, Berman shows how the ideal of authenticityâ€”of a self that could organize the individualâ€™s energy and direct it toward his own happinessâ€”articulated eighteenth-century manâ€™s deepest responses to this brave new world, and his most ardent hope for a new life in it. Exploring in particular the ideas of Montesquieu and Rousseau, Berman shows how the ideal of authenticity was radically opposed to the bourgeois, capitalistic idea of â€œself-interest.â€

The Politics of Authenticity: Radical Individualism and the Emergence of Modern Society