The Black Circle

In The Black Circle, Jeff Love reinterprets Kojève's works, showing him to be a provocative thinker who challenged modern society and its valuation of individuality, self-interest, and freedom from death. Emphasizing Kojève's neglected Russian roots, The Black Circle puts him in the context of the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Russian debates over the proper ends of human life. Love explores notions of perfection, freedom, and finality in Kojève's account of Hegel and his neglected later works, clarifying Kojève's emancipatory thinking and the meaning of the oft-misinterpreted "end of history." Joining intellectual history, close textual analysis, and philosophy to reassess an essential modern theorist, The Black Circle reveals Kojève's thought as a profound critique of capitalist individualism and a timely meditation on human freedom.