Ambition: An Essay on the Burning Desire to Rise

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We describe people who are consumed or devoured by ambition as if by a predator or an out-of-control inferno. Thinkers since deepest antiquity have raised these questions, approaching the subject of ambition with ambivalence and often trepidationas when the ancient Greek poet Hesiod proposed a differentiation between the good and the bad goddess Eris. Indeed, ambition as a longing for immortal fame seems to be one of the unique hallmarks of the human species. While philosophy has touched only occasionally on the problem of burning ambition, sociology, psychoanalysis, and world literature have provided rich and more revealing descriptions and examples of its shaping role in human history. Drawing on a long and varied tradition of writing on this topic, ranging from the works of Homer through Shakespeare, Freud, and Kafka and from the history of ancient Greece and Rome to the Italian Renaissance and up to the present day (to modernity and the current neoliberal era), Eckart Goebel explores our driving passion for recognition that insatiable hunter in the mirror and power.

Reviews

Goebel's book is an eloquent study of a chatoyant term and a timeless phenomenon. A brilliantly written essay that argues historically while teaching readers to turn to their own striving in a truly enlightened manner. * Andreas Beyer, Professor for the History of Art, Universitt Basel, Switzerland *
Eckart Goebels Ambition is a tour de force, tracking the complex and circuitous history of the concept through a series of profound analyses and offering inspired and provocative reflections of what has driven, haunted, and debilitated individuals and societies across the millennia. * John T. Hamilton, Harvard University, USA *

Author Bio

Eckart Goebel is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Tbingen, Germany. Previously, he was Chair and Professor of the German Department at New York University, USA. He is the author of seven books, including Beyond Discontent (Bloomsbury, 2012). James C. Wagner, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Department of German at New York University, USA.