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An Autobiography
Now available for the first time in paper, the classic translation of the autobiography of one of the great thinkers of the eighteenth century
Paperback
,
324 pages
Published
April 2nd 2001
by University of Illinois Press
(first published September 13th 1987)
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Community Reviews
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First I found this book to be surprisingly lighthearted. Why surprising? Because life in 1750s Poland was not light, but I guess in the 1790s, even in enlightened Berlin Maimon may not have known how bad things were. As possible proof of this I suggest you see page 37 where he recounts the remedy applied to his leg, which had been "pitiably crushed", by the country doctor who didn't have access to a pharmacy; "The remedy was, to kill a dog and thrust into it the cramped foot; this repeated sever
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This book is the autobiography of an 18th-century Polish Jew who moved from rural Poland to Berlin, taught himself philosophy and met all manner of important people, but was limited by his lack of people skills. The most interesting chapters are the first few, where he describes the poverty and misery of rural life. Maimon himself was married off by his parents at age 11, and had no formal secular education. (He implies that the only Jewish education he had was the Talmud; it seems hard to belie
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For people interested in Jewish history, Maimon's autobiography is is essential reading, even though his perspective, historically speaking, I think is somewhat skewed. His is the not-uncommon story of a brilliant and frustrated youth, trapped in a provincial society, who seeks his fortune in a more enlightened world. The Canadian biographer who assembled and edited the work is prejudiced, and sometimes as a reader, you don't feel a lot of gratitude for his notes and observations. Maimon himself
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Story begins with discussion of grandfather, who was arrested for murder after a boy's corpse was planted and discovered in his house. He was tortured but refused to confess, and was eventually exonerated.
Maimon's father kept a library of Hebrew books, some on secular topics. One in particular, David Ganz's "Zemah David", opened his eyes for the first time to modern science. It turned out that Ganz had studied astronomy with Tycho Brahe in Copenhagen, and had a lot to say on the subject. Also on ...more
Maimon's father kept a library of Hebrew books, some on secular topics. One in particular, David Ganz's "Zemah David", opened his eyes for the first time to modern science. It turned out that Ganz had studied astronomy with Tycho Brahe in Copenhagen, and had a lot to say on the subject. Also on ...more
Feb 06, 2008
Sal
marked it as to-read
I've wanted to read this for three years or so. look at this description! how could you not!
Wry and spirited, shrewd and unrepentant, Maimon alternated between nomadic destitution and intellectual swordplay among the Jewish elite of Berlin. The son of a petty merchant in Polish Lithuania, Maimon was a child Talmud prodigy who became increasingly antagonistic toward the Jewish establishment and receptive toward the secular philosophies of Spinoza, Hume, Leibnitz, and Kant.
A perpetual outsider, M ...more
Wry and spirited, shrewd and unrepentant, Maimon alternated between nomadic destitution and intellectual swordplay among the Jewish elite of Berlin. The son of a petty merchant in Polish Lithuania, Maimon was a child Talmud prodigy who became increasingly antagonistic toward the Jewish establishment and receptive toward the secular philosophies of Spinoza, Hume, Leibnitz, and Kant.
A perpetual outsider, M ...more
weird, brilliant guy, maybe his Germanwasn't so good because he only heard, Hebrew, Yiddish an Polish until he was an adult, yet he became a protege or admired critic of Moses Mendelssohn and Imanuel Knnt, and at various times a dropout idler or a true vagabond beggar. I dont think most of the book was ghostwritten by his publisher. too rough hewn with the ring of truth and phiolsphical or religious discussions of a very highe order, a bit over my head at times..
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