Overview

"""Lively . . . excoriating, eloquent . . . We are all Faustians now."" - James Wood, The New Yorker A devilishly fascinating tour of the Faustian bargain through the ages, from brimstone to blues and beyond . . . ""Lively . . . excoriating, eloquent . . . We are all Faustians now."" - James Wood, The New Yorker A devilishly fascinating tour of the Faustian bargain through the ages, from brimstone to blues and beyond . . . From ancient times to the modern world, the idea of the Faustian bargain-the exchange of one's soul in return for untold riches and power-has exerted a magnetic pull upon our collective imaginations. Scholar Ed Simon takes us on a historical tour of the Faustian bargain, from the Bible to blues, and illustrates how the impulse fto sacrifice our principles in exchange for power is present in all kinds of social ills, from colonialism to nuclear warfare, from social media to climate change to AI, and beyond. In doing so, Simon conveys just how much the Faustian bargain shows us about power and evil . . . and ourselves."

Full Product Details

Author:   Ed Simon
Publisher:   Melville House Publishing
Imprint:   Melville House Publishing
Weight:   0.567kg
ISBN:  

9781685891046

ISBN 10:   1685891047
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   09 July 2024
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Appointment at Deptford           Chapter 1: Simon Magus: Arch-Heretic, Supreme Necromancer   Chapter 2: Christ in the Desert: Two Millennia of Lent   Chapter 3: Of Saints and Succubi: Medieval Diabolical Contracts   Chapter 4: Great Reckonings, Small Rooms: Searching for the Historical Faust   Chapter 5: A Devil Too Many: Kit Marlowe and the Conjuring of Dr. Faust   Chapter 6: Going Upstairs, Coming Downstairs: On Witches’ Sabbaths and Black Masses   Chapter 7: Faust Is an Artist: Christoph Haizmann and the Infernal Painting   Chapter 8: A Romantic Hell: Goethe Saves Faust   Chapter 9: Melodies of Damnation: Faust Is a Musician and Composer   Chapter 10: Mephistopheles is American: Faustian Contracts in the United States   Chapter 11: The Darkest of Arts: Totalitarianism in the Faustian Century   Chapter 12: Mephistopheles in Hollywood: The Faustian Desires of Entertainment   Chapter 13: The Destroyer of Worlds: Condemned to Apocalypse in the Faustocene

Reviews

"""An undeniably fascinating read, as the author weaves literary and intellectual strands into a colorful tapestry."" - STARRED Kirkus Review ""An engaging, accessible, well-written, and more than timely reminder of the enduring propensity to trade our humanity for social, economic, or political gain ... persuasively and coherently argued."" —Philip Almond, author of Mary Magdalene: A Cultural History"

Author Information

Ed Simon is the Public Humanities Special Faculty in the English Department of Carnegie Mellon University and editor in chief of literary journal Belt Magazine. A staff writer for LitHub, his essays and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Paris Review Daily, the New Republic, and the Washington Post. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his family.

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