Books by Jerrold (New York University) Seigel

Turning life into art, Bohemia became a space where many innovative and original figures-some famous, some obscure-found a home.

What does it mean to be modern? In the nineteenth century a consensus emerged that Western Europe was giving birth to a new form of life in which bourgeois activities, people, attitudes and values played a key role. Jerrold Seigel offers a magisterial account of the development of European modernity.

This is a magisterial 2005 account of how major Western European thinkers have confronted the self since the seventeenth century. Jerrold Seigel explores the ways in which key figures have understood whether and how far individuals can achieve coherence and consistency in the face of inner tensions and external pressures.