RADICAL HOPE

RADICAL HOPE
Jonathan Lear
Harvard University Press

Radical Hope is a work of "philosophical anthropology," a meditation on ethics in the face of cultural devastation. Lear, a psychoanalyst, does a close reading of the long forgotten autobiography of Plenty Coups, chief of the Crow people at the moment their traditional way of life collapsed. The buffalo had disappeared and people were herded onto a reservation. Plenty Coups' response speaks to our contemporary moment and raises the question of how we might face the collapse of our own culture: What would it be like to live a life we don't understand? Radical Hope is a wise book that illuminates human ingenuity and courage in the face of terrible vulnerability.