Publicada originalmente en 1941, El cero y el infinito es la obra maestra de Arthur Koestler, un retrato estremecedor del totalitarismo y sus mecanismos de destrucción moral. Durante las purgas estalinistas, el viejo revolucionario Nicolas Rubachof es encarcelado y sometido a tortura psicologica por el partido al que ha dedicado toda su vida. La presion que el regimen ejerce sobre el terminara por mostrarle la ironia y la vileza de una dictadura que se cree instrumento de liberacion. ** Prologo de Mario Vargas LlosaReseña:Koestler nos lego una obra que siempre resultara atractiva y estimulante a quienes admiren a los hombres de principios o disfruten sin mas de las batallas de ideas.Christopher Hitchens
La insólita aventura de una banda de gladiadores y esclavos que tuvo en jaque durante más de dos años a las poderosas legiones del Imperio Romano. Koestler recrea con gran fuerza dramática esta gesta
Um relato dramático, em primeira pessoa, de um jornalista húngaro na França da Segunda Guerra MundialNo verão de 1940, a França declara guerra à Alemanha nazista. O pacto Germano-Soviético sela o des
This was the first book that Arthur Koestler wrote in English. It starts at the beginning of World War II when he was living in the South of France, working on "Darkness at Noon". After retreating to Paris, he was imprisoned as an undesirable alien. Even though he had been a crusader against fascism, he and many other anti-Nazis, were treated as enemies and their internment was brutal. The worst of his imprisonment was at Vernet, where prisoners had to sleep without blankets in 20 degrees of frost, and where he finally collapsed during a session of forced labour. Some of his fellow internees were eventually handed over to Nazi executioners. Koestler ponders on the collapse of pride and honour in France and he asks "Was the tragedy of France merely accidental, due to an unfortunate constellation? Or was it due to the still undiscovered, secret laws of the rise and decline of races and nations?"
At the beginning of the Second World War, Koestler was living in the south of France working on Darkness at Noon. After retreating to Paris he was imprisoned by the French as an undesirable alien even though he had been a respected crusader against fascism. Only luck and his passionate energy allowed him to escape the fate of many of the innocent refugees, who were handed over to the Nazis for torture and often execution. Scum of the Earth is more than the story of Koestlers survival. His shrewd observation of the collapse of French determination to resist during the summer of 1940 is an illustration of what happens when a nation loses its honour and its pride.
La observación del cosmos ha sido, a lo largo de la historia de la humanidad, un terreno tambaleante, lejano del rigor cientificista que parece caracterizar a la exploración de la naturaleza. Su estudio tampoco ha sido progresivo: ha variado y ha decaido
This was the third novel of Arthur Koestlers trilogy on ends and means - the other two are THE GLADIATORS and DARKNESS AT NOON - and the first he wrote in English. The central theme is the conflict between morality and expediency, and in this novel Koestler worked it out in terms of individual psychology.
El propio Koestler describe esta obra como un ómnibus en el que el autor hace de guía, un tour dirigido por sus escritos, seleccionados y comentados por él mismo. Es la odisea intelectual de un hombre que durante toda su vida ha buscado cualquier indicio que contribuyera al diagnostico (y solucion) de la problematica del hombre.
Estos escritos reflejan el cambio fundamental en la vida y el pensamiento de Arthur Koestler cuando éste abandonó la política para interesarse más por la ciencia, la psicología y la filosofía. Cabe resaltar su notable teoria de la creatividad en la ciencia y el arte o sus consideraciones sobre lo patologico y autodestructivo de nuestra especie.
Truman
