The Spirit of Hope

By: Byung-Chul Han, Daniel Steuer (Translator)

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Hardcover | 27 January 2025 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
111 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
21.34 x 14.73 x 1.52

Hardcover

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A spectre is haunting us: fear. We are constantly confronted with apocalyptic scenarios: pandemics, world war, the climate catastrophe. Images of the end of the world and the end of human civilization are conjured up with ever greater urgency. Anxiously, we face a bleak future. Preoccupied with crisis management, life becomes a matter of survival.

But it is precisely at such moments of fear and despair that hope arises like a phoenix from the ashes. Only hope can give us back a life that is more than mere survival. Fear isolates people and closes them off from one another; hope, by contrast, unites people and forms communities. It opens up a meaningful horizon that re-invigorates and inspires life. It nurtures fantasy and enables us to think about what is yet to come. It makes action possible because it infuses our world with purpose and meaning. Hope is the spring that liberates us from our collective despair and gives us a future.

In this short essay on hope, Byung-Chul Han gives us the perfect antidote to the climate of fear that pervades our world.

Industry Reviews

"A beautiful and stirring meditation on how we might rediscover our belief in the future, in spite of our hopeless times."
William Davies, author of Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the World

"I never got the memo that acting smart was about making people feel paralysed. I was only ever in it to spark some hope. It's nice to have a buddy – gives me hope – and I ... hope this lovely little book will be your buddy too. I really hope. The real thing. The antidote, the genuinely future future."
Timothy Morton, author of Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology

“Soulful … a rousing case for holding onto hope even, and perhaps especially, in times of hardship. This is sure to lift readers' spirits."
Publishers Weekly

"As a philosopher, Han has a spiritual bent … But his basic premise doesn't have to be religious; it suggests only that the world contains untold potential, that what we see in front of us isn't all that there will ever be."
Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker

"This stirring book will strike a chord with many readers"
Front Porch Republic

"a beautiful book on the nature of hope"
Nick Cave, Red Hand Files

"one of the most popular philosophers of the current era"
ArtReview

"This call to mental arms offers flickers of needed inspiration"
The Arts Fuse

"Han asks much of hope in this forthright book that answers a number of philosophical and political questions about his work … The Spirit of Hope will satisfy longtime readers by clarifying the political dimensions of his thought."
Robert Wyllie, Plough

"In The Spirit of Hope, the usually dour Han proselytizes for a concept of hope that transcends the satisfactions of facile optimism."
The Arts Fuse Recommended Books of 2025

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