San Antonio College Library

"Where else but chez Madame Girardin could you find such exquisite company as George Sand, Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac? In Edwardian London, Lady Desborough's 'Souls' group was frequented by Lord Curzon, Oscar Wilde and H.G. Wells. Max Eastman has said that at Mabel Dodge's Greenwich Village salon 'Everybody in the ferment of ideas could be found'--actress Eleanora Duse, recent Ivy League graduate Walter Lippmann, then unknown Gertrude Stein,...

"This is the third edition of a near standard survey of the intellectual life of the age of faith. Artz on the arts, as on philosophy, politics and other aspects of culture, makes lively and informative reading." -- The Washington Post.

This book is for anyone interested in ideas and their history. Despite its comprehensiveness, it is not primarily a survey or synthesis but rather an interpretation of modern intellectual history. Its specific purpose is to trace the development of one intriguing theme- perhaps the major theme- in modern man's way of thinking about himself and his universe. That theme is the sense of becoming rather than being.