Genius of the Modern World

Born into affluence, Marx became an angry, idealistic radical, on the run for his political agitating and incendiary writing. In Paris, he formulated his explosive analysis of capitalism and its corrosive effects. In London, his obsession dragged his family into poverty and tragedy. How did this man, whose funeral was attended by 11 people, generate one of history’s most influential ideologies?

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the most brilliant and dangerous minds of the 19th century His uncompromising and often brutal ideas smashed the comfortable presuppositions and assumptions of religion morality and science Bettany Hughes goes in search of the beliefs of a man whose work is amongst the most devastatingly manipulated and misinterpreted in philosophical history

Bettany Hughes travels to Vienna on the trail of Sigmund Freud the father of psychoanalysis Freuds influence surrounds us In our vocabulary repression penis envy the Freudian slip and in the freedom we take for granted to talk openly about our deepest feelings and insecurities