Weil, Simone;(Eliot, T.S.; Wills, Arthur)

The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Toward Mankind

New York, NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1952. First U.S. Edition. Hardcover. Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a political activist and philosopher born in France just before the First World War. A strong-willed child, Weil would protest in solidarity with the soldiers or the Bolsheviks. Later, she worked in an automobile factory to relate more to the working class, and she aided in the escape of German communists when Hitler came to power. She wanted to be a covert agent for France during World War II, though she was denied, and she ended up in London where she wrote The Need for Roots. Though raised in an agnostic household, Weil was always fascinated by the various religious traditions throughout the world and viewed them all as an expression of the same transcendent wisdom. Her spirituality was fed by her superhuman empathy and her perceptive, analytical mind. Her central concept of “Uprootedness” is defined as a near universal condition resulting from the destruction of ties with the past and the dissolution of community. Humans need to feel rooted, in a cultural and spiritual sense, to their environment and to both the past and to expectations for the future. In her masterful work, Weil diagnoses the causes of the social, cultural, and spiritual malaise seen in 20th century civilization. This disconnect, unfortunately, has pervaded indefinitely since Simone’s time. She suffered a bad bout of tuberculosis and died of cardiac arrest in 1943 at the age of 34. L'Enracinement was published in 1949 and translated into English by Arthur Wills in 1952. T. S. Eliot praised the work's balanced judgement, shrewdness and good sense, and he advised the reader to withhold judgment of the contrast between an almost superhuman humility and an almost outrageous arrogance: “"And--especially in the young, and in those like Simone Weil in whom one detects no sense of humor—egotism and selflessness can resemble each other so closely that we may mistake the one for the other,” (vii). From the collection of Russell Taylor Weil (b. 1927) (no relation), a prominent retired attorney & collector from Washington, DC. Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket: First U.S. Edition, First Printing, though neither is explicated as such on the copyright page. Book is in Fine condition with only mild shelf-wear to the fine edges of spine and minute bumping to the corners of front, back covers; mild browning to pages. Dust jacket is in relatively Good to Near Fine condition with moderate bumping to fine edges of front, back covers and spine; mild creasing and tearing along top edge and mild rubbing, scratching to same; a moderate-significant instance of chipping is seen at the top right corner of back cover; mild age discoloration to back cover. Fine / Good - Near Fine. [Item #5678]

Price: $150.00