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A Philosophy Of WalkingStock informationGeneral Fields
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Local DescriptionBy walking, you escape from the very idea of identity, the temptation to be someone, to have a name and a history ... The freedom in walking lies in not being anyone; for the walking body has no history, it is just an eddy in the stream of immemorial life. In A Philosophy of Walking, a bestseller in France, leading thinker Frederic Gros charts the many different ways we get from A to B-the pilgrimage, the promenade, the protest march, the nature ramble-and reveals what they say about us. Gros draws attention to other thinkers who also saw walking as something central to their practice. On his travels he ponders Thoreau's eager seclusion in Walden Woods; the reason Rimbaud walked in a fury, while Nerval rambled to cure his melancholy. He shows us how Rousseau walked in order to think, while Nietzsche wandered the mountainside to write. In contrast, Kant marched through his hometown every day, exactly at the same hour, to escape the compulsion of thought. Brilliant and erudite, A Philosophy of Walking is an entertaining and insightful manifesto for putting one foot in front of the other. Review: Resolving to take more walks in the new year might sound like promising to take more naps--choosing idleness over work. But a lot of clever people don't see it that way [...] Frederic Gros asks why so many of our most productive writers and philosophers--Rousseau, Kant, Rimbaud, Robert Louis Stevenson, Nietzsche, Jack Kerouac--have also been indefatigable walkers. -- Christopher Caldwell * Financial Times *
Author Biography: Frederic Gros is a professor of philosophy at the University of Paris XII and the Institute of Political Studies, Paris. He was the editor of the last lectures of Michel Foucault at the College de France. He has written books on psychiatry, law and war. He lives in Paris. DescriptionThis book will change how you think about walking and how you walk while you are thinking. In an updated new edition, Frédéric Gros leads readers on an entertaining and insightful ramble in the company of great philosophers - Kant, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Kierkegaard - who understood that great ideas came to them while on foot. |