Originally published: New York: Random House, 1972.

A comprehensive account of human kindness.

Composed while its author was imprisoned, this book remains one of Western literature’s most eloquent meditations on the transitory nature of earthly belongings, and the superiority of things of the mind. Slavitt’s translation captures the energy and passion of the original. And in an introduction intended for the general reader, Seth Lerer places Boethius’s life and achievement in context.

The Holocaust and attempts to deny it, racism, murder, the case of Mary Bell. How can we include these and countless other examples of evil within our vision of a common humanity? These painful human incongruities are precisely what Raimond Gaita boldly harmonizes in his powerful new book, _A Common Humanity_. Hatred with forgiveness, evil with love, suffering with compassion, and the mundane with the precious. Gaita asserts that our conception of humanity cannot be based upon the empty language of (...) individual rights when it is our shared feelings of grief, hope, love, guilt, shame and remorse that offer a more potent foundation for common understanding. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, Simon Weil, Primo Levi, George Orwell, Iris Murdoch and Sigmund Freud, Gaita creates a beautifully written and provocative new picture of our common humanity. (shrink)

In this marvellous book, Raimond Gaita discusses ideas about love and hatred, good and evil, guilt and forgiveness. Moving, wise and inspiring, A Common Humanity explores personal, political and philosophical ideas about the kind of society and the sort of public conversation we might have in the twenty-first century. 'Raimond Gaita's insights are original and his prose is as eloquent as it is affecting.' Economist, Books of the Year, 2000.