Herald of a Restless World
How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People
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Herald of a Restless World
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Narrated by:
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Esther Wane
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By:
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Emily Herring
About this listen
The first English-language biography of Henri Bergson, the philosopher who defined individual creativity and transformed twentieth century thought.
At the dawn of the twentieth century, Henri Bergson became the most famous philosopher on earth. Where prior thinkers sketched out a predictable universe, he asserted the transformative power of consciousness and creativity. An international celebrity, he made headlines around the world debating luminaries like Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein about free will and time. The vision of creative evolution and freedom he presented was so disruptive that the New York Times branded him "the most dangerous man in the world."
In the first English-language biography of Bergson, Emily Herring traces how his celebration of the time-bending uniqueness of individual experience struck a chord with those shaken by modern technological and social change. Bergson captivated a society in flux like no other. Long after he faded from public view, his insights into memory, time, joy and creativity continue to shape our perceptions to this day. Herald of a Restless World is an electrifying portrait of a singular intellect.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- dtheherring
- 17-11-24
How Emily Herring brought Bergson to the masses
This is a great journey through the philosophy and thinking of early C20th Europe. One of John Banville's books of the year, no less! Herring has the knack of relating complex ideas in an accessible, humorous and stimulating way, bringing to life her subject's key ideas (eg elan vital, creative evolution, duree) and his vertiginous rise to fame (and the aftermath of his run-ins with Bertrand Russell and Einstein.) Highly recommended!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- K. Koovit
- 10-12-24
Fascinating
A wonderful overview of an interesting man. It would be useful to know French while listening.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Aidan McGlynn
- 06-02-25
A compelling account of Bergson's life and work
It's unusual for a biography to take its subject's lack of fame as a selling point, but Herring's biography of Henri Bergson does just that. The premise of the book is very compelling - Bergson was once the most famous philosopher and thinker in the world, widely thought to be set to join the greats of the Western canon, and these days few have heard of him, even those who have studied philosophy. What Herring offers is an account, grounded in the details of Bergson's life, ideas, and personality, of how he managed to become so well-known, and how that quickly collapsed. The book does a very good job of conveying the essentials of Bergson's main ideas, such as the central notion of durée, in ways that are both sympathetic and accessible to the non-specialist, and it also explains why his ideas about time, life, memory, and evolution were found so radical, and why they appealed so widely to people who otherwise weren't that invested in questions in metaphysics and the philosophy of science, in the cultural moment in which they appeared. His extraordinary transformation with the outbreak of the First World War, and the consequences it had for both Bergson and the world, form a compelling and intriguing subplot in the second half of the book, as we start to see the beginnings of his fall from stardom and towards his current obscurity. This timely intellectual biography makes a strong case that the contingencies that saw Bergson drop out of fashion in the 20th Century shouldn't be allowed to rob the man and his ideas of the attention that they in fact merit, nor should we miss the relevance that some of his contributions may have for the problems confronting us in the 21st Century.
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