One of the founders of modern philosophical thought, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) has gained the reputation of being one of the most abstruse and impenetrable of thinkers. This first major biography of Hegel in English offers not only a complete, up-to-date account of the life, but also a perspicuous overview of the key philosophical concepts in Hegel's work in a style that will be accessible to professionals and nonprofessionals alike.

Terry Pinkard situates Hegel firmly in the context of his times. The story of that life is of an ambitious, powerful thinker living in a period of great tumult dominated by the figure of Napoleon. Hegel's friendships and encounters with some of the great minds of this period feature prominently in the narrative: Holderlin, Goethe, Humboldt, Fichte, Schelling, Novalis, the Schlegels, Mendelssohn, and others. The treatment of the philosophy avoids Hegel's own famously technical jargon in order to display the full sweep and power of Hegel's thought.

The Hegel who emerges from this account is a complex, fascinating figure of European modernity, who offers us a still compelling examination of that new world born out of the political, industrial, social, and scientific revolutions of his period.