Antoine Compagnon introduces us to the miraculous and graceful writers whose ideas have helped us better know ourselves.

Antoine Compagnon recounts the life of the genius Pascal (author of the Treatise on Conics) even as he seeks meaning in his elliptical philosophies. With a turn of mind given to recombination, Pascal explored the full potential of thought. In forty-one chapters, Compagnon also examines the conceptss of violence and truth, tyranny, intellectual finesse, play, and the happy medium.