Description
New translation by Wolfi Landstreicher
6×9 | 378 pages
9BB Comments:
If you’ve struggled with the Byington translation, sensing the presence of a livelier spirit beneath so much halting clause-laden logomachy, you’re in for a treat. While the 9BB editorial staff cannot vouch for the linguistic fidelity of Wolfi Landsteicher’s translative efforts (seeing as we spreche nicht gut Deutsch), it’s clear that he has succeeded in breathing new life into this singular classic work of philosophical iconoclasm. We’re content to trust our instincts and enjoy the ride. Stirner remains mysterious, unruly, and important. He was also, it now seems, a most brilliant troll.
From the publisher:
“I am not nothing in the sense of emptiness, but am the creative nothing, the nothing out of which I myself create everything as creator.” —Max Stirner
FIRST NEW ENGLISH-LANGUAGE TRANSLATION SINCE 1907.
The Unique and Its Property brings to the world a radical view: egoism, the notion that the individual is the measure of all things. Max Stirner’s opus was first published in 1845. In 1907 Benjamin R. Tucker published the first English-language translation of Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum, carried out by Steven T. Byington and titled The Ego and His Own. Every edition of Stirner’s book since that time has been a reproduction or revision of the Byington translation—until now.
In the first new English-language translation since 1907, egoist anarchist author and historian Wolfi Landstreicher has brought forward both the form and the intent of Stirner’s work. Where Byington downplayed or missed Stirner’s more biting criticisms and his humor, the Underworld Amusements edition delivers every “occasional crudity” and all the “playful ferocity.”
Every group demands loyalty to the group, their notion of right and wrong, and most of all a polarized opposition to their opponents. The Unique and Its Property is an antidote to moralists of the sacred and the secular alike. It is an illuminating torch to light the lonely path of the intrepid individual, not incidentally also setting ablaze every prevailing politic and philosophy.
