In 2010, Rob Riemen presciently warned the world about the eternal return of fascism. It’s time to listen to him again.

In a collection of four essays, Rob Riemen shares stories of people who have exemplified greatness in showing humanity and who, because of this, offer hope. Hope that there are still people in the world who stand up for mankind.

The answer to the question of how we can leave this age of anxiety behind us to make way for a world in which human beings are once again able to lead meaningful lives in freedom, truth and justice is to be found in Machiavelli’s insight: go back to the original idea of what it means to be human.

From Thomas Mann to George Orwell by way of Robert Oppenheimer, Saint-Exupéry and other less known figures, Riemen tells their stories to provide the world with hope which is, after all, what most of us need right now.

Riemen leaves us with the knowledge that there is one weapon that can destroy war and fascism — the flag of hope that is European humanism and its deep concern for the human soul.

Rob Riemen, born in 1962, is one of Europe’s leading intellectuals and the founder and president of the Nexus Institute that in the past decades has become one of Europe’s most prestigious organizations to inspire public intellectual debate about the most important subjects for humanity and society.

Riemen is the author of several books including Nobility of Spirit. A forgotten Ideal (Yale University Press, 2008), To Fight Against This Age (Norton, 2017) and Becoming Human Is an Art (Athenaeum, 2023). His books have been translated worldwide into 24 languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and Russian included).