The Need for Roots

Simone Weil, Ros Schwartz, Kate Kirkpatrick

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English

Penguin
06 February 2024

Philosophy; Social & political philosophy

A new translation of Simone Weil's best-known work- a political, philosophical and spiritual treatise on what human life could be

An icon of twentieth-century French philosophy, Simone Weil was described by Andre Gide as 'the patron saint of all outsiders' and by Albert Camus as 'the only great spirit of our time'. In this, one of her last and best-known works, she offers a vision of what human life could be - where the needs of our bodies are met and the needs of the soul, too, are better known and nurtured.

Written in 1943, when France was occupied and Weil was working in the offices of the Free France in London, The Need for Roots responds to a plea both timely and timeless- what can satisfy the cry of our hearts for justice? In the same decade that saw the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Weil argues that rights alone are inadequate to the task - and encourages her contemporaries not to repeat the mistakes of the French Revolution and the malaise of modern life. The alternative she offers has intrigued and inspired generations of readers since.

By: Simone Weil
Introduction by: Kate Kirkpatrick
Translated by: Ros Schwartz
Imprint: Penguin
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 17mm
Weight: 216g
ISBN: 9780241467978
ISBN 10: 0241467977
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 06 February 2024
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , General/trade , Undergraduate , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Simone Weil (Author) Simone Weil (1909-43) was a French political activist, mystic, and a singular figure in French philosophy. She studied at the elite cole Normale Superieure, obtained her agregation (teaching diploma) in philosophy in 1931, worked at Renault from 1934 to 1935, enlisted in the International Brigades in 1936 and worked as a farm labourer in 1941. She left France in 1942 for New York and then London, where she worked for General de Gaulle's Free French movement. Most of her works, published posthumously, consist of some notebooks and a collection of religious essays. They include, in English, Waiting for God (1951), Gravity and Grace (1952), The Need for Roots (1952), Notebooks (2 vol., 1956), Oppression and Liberty (1958), and Selected Essays, 1934-1943 (1962).

Reviews for The Need for Roots

This is one of those books which ought to be studied by the young before their leisure has been lost and their capacity for thought destroyed; books the effect of which, we can only hope, will become apparent in the attitude of mind of another generation -- T. S. Eliot The patron saint of all outsiders -- André Gide The only great spirit of our time -- Albert Camus