Ambition An Essay on the Burning Desire to Rise

"A stunning exploration of ambition that brings together literary, philosophical, psychological, and sociological perspectives on this most human of passions. Drawing on a long and varied tradition of writing on this topic, from authors and thinkers that range from Hesiod to Kafka and from Shakespeare to Freud, and from a history that moves from ancient Greece and Rome via Italian Renaissance to modernity, Eckart Goebel explores our driving passion for recognition-an insatiable hunter in the mirror-and power"--