|aOn humanity in dark times: thoughts about Lessing -- Rosa Luxemburg: 1871-1919 -- Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli: a Christian on St. Peter's chair from 1958 to 1963 -- Karl Jaspers: a laudatio -- Karl Jaspers: citizen of the world? -- Isak Dinesen: 1885-1963 -- Hermann Broch: 1886-1951 -- Walter Benjamin: 1892-1940 -- Bertolt Brecht: 1898-1956 -- Waldemar Gurian: 1903-1954 -- Randall Jarrell: 1914-1965 -- Index.
Collection of essays which present portraits of individuals ranging from Rosa Luxemburg to Pope John XXIII who the author believes have illuminated ’dark times’