The renaissance ushered in the modern age. Its spirit expressed itself creatively in a hundred ways–in literature and the arts, philosophy and the sciences, economics and politics, in living styles and social organisation. Its achievements have been phenomenal. Nevertheless, the age has also been greatly troubled by contradictions and setbacks, problems and disorders, wars and revolutionary upheavals and today it faces a global crisis of unprecedented magnitude. In the wide-ranging essays in this volume Professor Ray explores various trends and aspects of the modern age. Philosopher, historian, sociologist and litterateur, he brings his own humanist view to illumine some of the significant movements and counter-movements of modern history. Shakespeare, Goethe, Baudelaire, Camus, Sartre, Popper, Tagore, Gandhi, M.N. Roy, Phule, Ambedkar–they form landmarks in this course of his explorations. Starting with a personal account of the twentieth century, he focuses on some of the complex issues of our age and calls for a new renaissance to overcome our contemporary crisis.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sibnarayan Ray
Professor Sibnarayan Ray was a close associate of M. N. Roy during the last eight years of the latter's life. He was Chairman of the Department of Indian Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia, for nearly twenty years. Also Professor at the Universities of Bombay and California (Santa Barbara): Director of Rabindra Bhavana, Visva Bharati University; Research Fellow at the Universities of London and Chicago; and visiting lecturer at Oxford, Cambridge, Heidelberg, and various other Universities in Europe, the United States, Australia and Asia. He gave the main address at the Third World Congress of Humanists at the University of Oslo, Norway, and was a member of the Executive and Board of Directors of International Humanist and Ethical Union, Holland; Chaired the First International Congress on Modernisatior. In Asia at the Korea University, Seoul; was Director of the international Seminar on EI Papel de la Inteligencia eu las Sociedades Asiatican Contempraneas at the University of Mexico. Author of about forty books in English and Bengali; be has been editing a Bengali quarterly of ideas and unquiry (Jijnasa) for the last eighteen years. He has been recently honoured with an Emeritus Fellowship in Literature. Besides writing a number of books in English and Bengali, he is engaged in editing the Selected Works of M. N. Roy, four volumes of which have already been published.
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