Didier Maleuvre was born and grew up in France, and completed his doctorate in the United States (Yale University, 1993). He teaches comparative literature and the history of ideas at the University of California, Santa Barbara. At the heart of his writing is the desire to keep alive the spark that leads readers to seek the wisdom of art, literature, philosophy, and the study of religious beliefs. Who ever said that only religion or the social sciences own the patent on the great questions of life? The author believes in putting the human back into the humanities and show how the burning puzzles--being, death, the universe, the mind, God--fire the progress of Western culture.