Fascinating discussion of authority from the enigmatic Russian-born philosopher.

A short and sophisticated introduction to Kojève's philosophy of right. An essential work of political philosophy for readers of Arendt and Zizek.

“Kojève was a magician of thought … undoubtedly, he was the inventor of the last grand narrative of philosophy and history, of which the neo-conservative ideologue Fukuyama was but a mediocre imitator.”
—Pierre Macherey

“Kojève spoke of Hegel's religious philosophy, the phenomenology of Spirit, master and slave, the struggle for prestige, the in-itself, the for-itself, nothingness, projects, the human essence as revealed in the struggle onto death and in the transformation of error into truth. Strange theses for a world beleaguered by fascism!”
—Louis Althusser

“Alexandre Kojève’s originality and courage, it must be said, is to have perceived the impossibility of going any further, the necessity, consequently, of renouncing the creation of an original philosophy and, thereby, the interminable starting-over which is the avowal of the vanity of thought.”
—Georges Bataille

“Kojève’s lectures made a deep impression on his listeners—to more various and influential effect than probably any others in France this century.”
—Perry Anderson

“Alexandre Kojève … is one of the most notable Russian thinkers of the twentieth century … the lectures represent an exceedingly important (and tendentious) interpretation of Hegel, if not an independent philosophical view in the guise of a seemingly objective scholarly commentary.”
—Jeff Love, Slavic and East European Journal