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Aldous Huxley was one of the twentieth century’s most prescient thinkers. This new biography is a rich and lucid account that charts the different phases of Huxley’s career: from the early satirist who depicted the glamorous despair of the postwar generation, to the committed pacifist of the 1930s, the spiritual seeker of the 1940s, the psychedelic sage of the 1950s – who affirmed the spiritual potential of mescaline and LSD – to the New Age prophet of Island. While Huxley is still best known as the author of Brave New World, Poller argues that it is The Perennial Philosophy, The Doors of Perception and Island – Huxley’s blueprint for a utopian society – that have had the most cultural impact.
Aldous Huxley was one of the twentieth century’s most prescient thinkers. This new biography is a rich and lucid account that charts the different phases of Huxley’s career: from the early satirist who depicted the glamorous despair of the postwar generation, to the committed pacifist of the 1930s, the spiritual seeker of the 1940s, the psychedelic sage of the 1950s – who affirmed the spiritual potential of mescaline and LSD – to the New Age prophet of Island. While Huxley is still best known as the author of Brave New World, Poller argues that it is The Perennial Philosophy, The Doors of Perception and Island – Huxley’s blueprint for a utopian society – that have had the most cultural impact.