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Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
As a young man, Montaigne had a problem. It was making him miserable – but you wouldn’t know that if you looked at him from the outside.
On the surface, he seemed to be living a pretty nice life. For starters, he was a nobleman, born into a wealthy family in 1533. He had a cushy childhood, received a classical education, and then began a successful career in law and politics at the age of 24. For the next 13 years, he worked as a magistrate in the city of Bordeaux in southwestern France.
He also inherited a profitable winemaking business, a large chateau, and a sprawling country estate full of vineyards, about 30 miles from Bordeaux. He split his time between the estate and the city, living a double life: one urban, dedicated to public service; the other rural, dedicated to wine-growing.
Well, sort of. By his own admission, he was incompetent at managing the estate and neglectful of his duties. To avoid them, he’d often go horse riding instead. He spent the rest of his time visiting neighbors, socializing, and reading classical works by ancient Greek and Roman historians, poets, and philosophers.
But that’s where the problem began. Those ancient philosophers wrote a lot about death, and Montaigne became increasingly obsessed with the subject as he read them in his 20s.
The obsession grew even deeper in his 30s, as more and more of his loved ones passed away. First, his best friend died from the plague. Then, his father died, probably from complications arising from a kidney stone. Then, his younger brother died after getting hit in the head by a ball while playing a game of jeu de paume – the Renaissance-era predecessor of tennis. Then, his first child died when she was only two months old.
Meanwhile, people in France were keeling over left and right for all sorts of terrible reasons: famine, civil war, witch trials, smallpox – the list went on and on. Death was lurking everywhere, able to strike anyone at any time from anywhere. Montaigne’s preoccupation with it therefore seemed not only natural but rational and inescapable. With so much death around him, how could he stop thinking about it? And if he couldn’t stop thinking about it, how could he enjoy anything else in life? The idea spoiled everything, and there was no way of shaking it.
Or so he thought. But then something happened that would forever change his attitude toward death and give him a second lease on life.
How to Live (2010) is both a biography of the writer Montaigne and an overview of the monumental work for which he’s famous: the Essays – a genre of writing that he invented. Along the way, it suggests some lessons we can take from his life and apply to our own.
Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.
Genau dafür ist Blinkist total genial! Es wird auf das Wesentliche reduziert, die Blinks sind gut verständlich, gut zusammengefasst und auch hörbar! Das ist super. 80 Euro für ein ganzes Jahr klingt viel, aber dafür unbegrenzt Zugriff auf 3000 Bücher. Und dieses Wissen und die Zeitersparnis ist unbezahlbar.
Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll
Einer der besten, bequemsten und sinnvollsten Apps die auf ein Handy gehören. Jeden morgen 15-20 Minuten für die eigene Weiterbildung/Entwicklung oder Wissen.
Viele tolle Bücher, auf deren Kernaussagen reduziert- präzise und ansprechend zusammengefasst. Endlich habe ich das Gefühl, Zeit für Bücher zu finden, für die ich sonst keine Zeit habe.
Hol dir mit Blinkist die besten Erkenntnisse aus mehr als 7.000 Sachbüchern und Podcasts. In 15 Minuten lesen oder anhören!
Jetzt kostenlos testenBlink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari