The Curious Enlightenment of Professor Caritat

The Curious Enlightenment of Professor Caritat is a brilliant fictional journey through Western political philosophy by one of our most original thinkers. Professor Caritat, a middle-aged Candide, walks naively through the neighbouring countries of Utilitaria, Communitaria and Libertaria, in his quest to find the best of all possible worlds. Cut loose from the confines of his ivory tower, this wandering professor is made to confront the perplexed state of modern thinking in this dazzling comedy of ideas.

“"Written in a beautifully clear style, full of a keen, serious wit ... Lukes achieves both lightness and weight in a way many novelists might envy."- Independent "This book is a box of delights, often wonderfully funny and always deliciously clever, a contemporary political satire to set among the best."- New Statesman "Steven Lukes's moral fable is in the tradition of tall travellers' tales from Swift and Voltaire to Lewis Carroll and Samuel Butler."- London Review of Books "Knock-out satirical humour."- Times Literary Supplement "Lukes manages to equal the pace and flair of Candide ."- New York Times Book Review "Utterly magnetic."- Los Angeles Times Book Review”

"A delightfully edifying comedy." Guardian "Knock-out satirical humour. " Times Literary Supplement "The book is the readiest guide one could have to the assorted extremisms which presently vie in the global marketplace for ideal worlds." Financial Times "Written in a beautifully clear style, full of a keen, serious wit... Lukes achieves both lightness and weight in a way many novelists might envy." Independent

Steven Lukes is professor of politics and sociology at New York University, and the the author of Liberals and Cannibals and Moral Relativism. He lives in New York.

The Curious Enlightenment of Professor Caritat is a brilliant fictional journey through Western political philosophy by one of our most original thinkers. Professor Caritat, a middle-aged Candide, walks naively through the neighbouring countries of Utilitaria, Communitaria and Libertaria, in his quest to find the best of all possible worlds. Cut loose from the confines of his ivory tower, this wandering professor is made to confront the perplexed state of modern thinking in this dazzling comedy of ideas.

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