Author Description

Was Martin Buber a philosopher or theologian, a man of letters or scientist? It is perhaps impossible to sum up Martin Buber (1878–1865) in a single word, not least due to the variety of his creative output: he wrote in several languages and in diverse forms, harnessing rich thematic variety across different creative phases. Critical assessments of the author are equally divergent: idealized as the "apostle of Judaism for humanity" by one, mocked by another as the "Jew for Germans" post Auschwitz. Only readers with a sense of his work as a whole truly know Buber. Martin Buber's Selected Works (MBW) provides a broader view. It makes accessible the lifework of this great 20th century thinker in one complete edition. Buber's broadly ramified oeuvre is presented here with commentary in an edition that includes many previously unpublished works, addressed to an academic readership as well as the general public with an interest in Jewish intellectual history and religious philosophical thought.