On Evil

For many enlightened liberal-minded thinkers today, and for most on the political left, evil is an outmoded concept. It smacks too much of absolute judgments and metaphysical certainties to suit the modern age. In this witty, accessible study, prominent Marxist thinker Terry Eagleton launches a surprising defence of the reality of evil, drawing on literary, theological and psychoanalytic sources to suggest that evil, no mere mediaeval artefact, is a real phenomenon with palpable force in our contemporary world. In a book that ranges from St Augustine to alcoholism, Thomas Aquinas to Thomas Mann, Shakespeare to the Holocaust, Eagleton investigates the frightful plight of those doomed souls who apparently destroy for no reason. 

This edition is for sale in South Asia only.

‘We Christians have had a lot to thank Terry Eagleton for. Not only did he write, in Reason, Faith and Revolution, the most enjoyable response to the new atheism, but he's now published another thoroughly enjoyable book that all but restores evil to its rightful place.’—Guardian

‘An absorbing, stimulating, awfully entertaining discussion.’—Ray Olson, Booklist

‘Highly recommended for anyone interested in the intersection between literature, philosophy, and religion.’—Library Journal

‘Jaunty and surprisingly entertaining . . . [Eagleton's] argument is subtle, intricate, provocative and limpidly expressed. . . . A valuable contribution to a debate as old as Adam and Eve and as contemporary as 9/11 and Abu Ghraib.’—John Banville, Irish Times

‘[A] brisk, deep and oddly entertaining book about mankind at its very worst.’—Independent