In this biography of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), now available in English, historian Guillaume Payen synthesizes the connections between the German philosopher's life and work. Critically, but without polemics, he creates a portrait of Heidegger in his time, using all available sources--lectures, letters, and the notorious "black notebooks."

Payen chronicles Heidegger's "changing destinies" after the First World War, an uncompromising Catholicism gave way to a vigorous striving for a philosophical revolution--fertile ground for National Socialism. The book reflects a life of light and shadow. Heidegger was a great philosopher and teacher who cultivated friendships and love affairs with Jews but also was an anti-Semitic nationalist who lamented the "Judaization of German intellectual life."