Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit. By Joshua Foa Dienstag. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 314p. $35.00.

This stimulating book has two aims, one descriptive and one normative. Its first goal is to provide an “appraisal” of pessimism and recover it “as an important tradition in the history of political thought” alongside more familiar -isms. Its second goal is to offer an “endorsement” of this neglected tradition and “reanimate” it by presenting its “appeal” in such a way as to “recreate it” in us (pp. ix, xii–xiii, 265, 271).