“Amazing stories! Incredible quotes! Sordid details! This book shows that a genius in the realm of thought can be a dummy in the land of love.” — Tom Morris, author of If Aristotle Ran General Motors
What do René Descartes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Jean-Paul Sartre have in common? That’s right: they were all hopeless failures when it came to romance. Author Andrew Shaffer explores the paradox at the core of Western philosophical thought—that history’s greatest thinkers were also the most pathetic lovers to ever walk the earth. With razor-sharp wit and probing insight, Shaffer shows how it’s the philosophers’ missteps, as much as their musings, that are able to truly boggle the intellect.
Think your love life is a mess? Wait until you meet the men who wrote the book on wisdom—and failed every test of the heart:
- Scandalous History: Forget boring dates and dry texts. Discover the affairs, murders, and mishaps the textbooks left out, from the philosopher who strangled his wife to the one exiled for sleeping with an emperor's niece.
- Biographical Essays: Meet the geniuses behind Western thought, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who abandoned all five of his children, and Peter Abelard, whose affair with a student ended with his castration.
- Pop Philosophy: An accessible and hilarious introduction to the private lives of legends like Sartre, Kant, and Nietzsche, proving that a love of wisdom and being a wise lover are two very different things.
- Funny Nonfiction: A refreshingly irreverent read that's perfect for anyone who loves history, philosophy, and a healthy dose of schadenfreude at the expense of history's greatest minds.
"[An] amusing essay in highbrow schadenfreude...most of the philosophers, giant throbbing intellects and all, simply screwed up like the rest of us."
