The Rise and the Fall of the Modern Man is an excellent philosophical
essay written by Jacek Dobrowolski. The author – which is
contemporary, existential nihilist with pretensions to a minimum of
compassion-morality – tracks the development of the idea of the
modern subjectivity, swinging between literature and philosophy. He
mastered the rare art of concise updates of momentous philosophical
issues, by which he refers in hedge-hopping vivacious style. The review
notes the advantages (and shortcomings) of the essay, exposing the
main focal points present in its insightful narration developed from
disenchanted antiquity to the exhausted post-modernity.