My fate -- Liberalism -- Authoritarianism -- Religion, language, and history -- Human variety -- So, liberal after all? -- Interlude: nostalgia, a trip to the city, arrival -- Robert Paul Wolff: the poverty of liberalism -- Sidney Morgenbesser: philosophy as practical surrealism -- Robert Denoon Cumming: human nature and history -- From Heidegger to Adorno -- Past, present, future.

"Raymond Geuss is a critic of liberalism, a politics so pervasive in the West that it goes unnoticed. His attention sharpened by his own unorthodox intellectual journey, Geuss locates what we fail to see in the status quo: its shallowness and futility. Rejecting both authoritarian horror and liberal complacency, Geuss looks to genuinely new ideas."