The Ruin of Kasch Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Ruin of Kasch Book

The Ruin of Kasch examines the rise of the modern state and the origins of romantic nationalism, whose sick fruit has been harvested in places such as Bosnia, Chechnya, and East Timor. Roberto Calasso locates the transformation in the French Revolution, when a frivolous monarchy evaporated before a government that valued order, bureaucracy, and above all secrecy. He also attributes it to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-PĂ©rigord (1754-1838), who was perhaps the first professional civil servant. Ever selfish, Talleyrand proved the perfect servant to the Napoleonic Era; as Napoleon said, "Principles are fine; they don't commit you to anything." The Ruin of Kasch is about Talleyrand, but also, Italo Calvino notes, "about everything else." It's a whirlwind of a book, sometimes maddeningly so. It is one to pick up, ponder, put down, argue with, and then resume reading until the next argument pops up a page or two later. Read More

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  • Product Description

    In the African kingdom of Kasch the king should be sacrificed when the stars come into a particular alignment. One day a stranger arrives who tells such good yarns the priests forget to watch the skies. The king survives. Sacrifice is abolished, but the kingdom begins to decline. Using this Bedouin legend Roberto Calasso questions the legitimacy of power, tyranny and sacrifice. Talleyrand is the master of ceremonies and guides the reader into real and symbolic places. We are accompanied by Marie-Antoinette, Bentham, Goethe, Baudelaire, Marx, Chateaubriand, three gruesome assassins and assorted other folk. They all contribute to Calasso's vision of history which encompasses both narrative and reflection and reveals how ideas and actual events impinge upon one another.

  • 0856357138
  • 9780856357138
  • Roberto Calasso
  • 10 November 1994
  • Carcanet Press Ltd
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 320
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