Time of the Magicians is worthy of the hype that enveloped it in Germany, where it has sold more than 100,000 copies — that is, a hundred times as many as any of Benjamin’s works in their first print run. It is a tremendous feat of scholarship, but more pertinently it is also a technical masterpiece, knitting together the four men’s love lives, money troubles, ontological anxieties and the wider ferment of the Weimar republic with uncommon dexterity ... My only substantial complaint is that Eilenberger does not always do as much as he might to untangle some of the more 14-dimensional knots of abstraction for a bonehead like me. At times I found myself oscillating between repeated futile assaults on Wittgenstein’s notion of the “statement as picture of reality” and staring helplessly for minutes on end at the pigeons nesting outside my window, thinking how nice it would be to be a pigeon and not to have to grapple with Wittgenstein.

... smoothly translated ... argues compellingly ... Readers drawn to Sarah Bakewell’s best-selling At the Existentialist Café will appreciate this accessible and deeply human treatment of four thinkers who are notoriously incomprehensible ... To be clear: Eilenberger’s latest is not an easy read. It is, however, worth the difficulty. He patiently draws these four intellectual magi out of the shadows of their writings, which often tend toward complete opacity. The result is not a book of academic philosophy but rather an intellectual history that largely succeeds in bringing philosophy to life ... a timely and worthwhile read. Eilenberger’s 'magicians' are household names in Germany and much of Europe — which may partially account for the book’s success abroad — but they are relatively unknown in the United States. Eilenberger makes a good case for their familiarity even when the magic that they practiced veered toward the dark arts ... One of Eilenberger’s achievements is to explain Heidegger’s efforts to position himself as the hero and sorcerer of post-World War I Germany and therefore foreshadow his full-throated support of the Nazi regime as it came to power ... an invitation to philosophize, an activity of seeing the world a little more clearly by clarifying the language and thoughts that we use to describe it.

...vibrant ... everything in Time of the Magicians— ideas, narrative and phrasing (translated from the German into seamless English by Shaun Whiteside) — has been fused into a readable, resonant whole ... Eilenberger is a terrific storyteller, unearthing vivid details that show how the philosophies of these men weren’t the arid products of abstract speculation but vitally connected to their temperaments and experiences.

... the real debate Eilenberger’s book is about is not what happened, for two hours, between Heidegger and Cassirer in Davos (that was just a short, concluding episode, meant primarily for public consumption), but something far more consequential: whatever happened — philosophically, but also socially, culturally, and politically — over the previous 10 years across Europe ... The structure of this story shows Eilenberger’s sure instinct and outstanding skill as a philosophical narrator... Eilenberger has the excellent idea of not even trying to resist Mann’s influence, but to ride on it. In part because of the spell cast by Mann’s novel, what Eilenberger does in his book is primarily storytelling — philosophical storytelling, that is. The smart introduction of the protagonists, the careful laying out of the plot, the dramatic buildup, a change of pace here, an ellipsis there — these and other tricks of the novelistic trade are on full display in Time of the Magicians. Eilenberger has the born storyteller’s gift of placing the meaty detail or the revealing anecdote exactly where it will have the biggest impact ... he pursues a particular cluster of thinkers because they reveal themselves to be part of the same philosophical plot ... Events have a way of narrating themselves when they encounter a gifted storyteller ... Philosophy, then, is nothing if not embodied. And that’s precisely what makes these four figures such excellent storytelling material. They are all characters in search of an author. For to embody philosophy is to enact a drama.

...a fascinating and accessible account of what the book’s subtitle refers to as 'the decade that reinvented philosophy' ... The ghost at Mr. Eilenberger’s feast is the knowledge that most readers will have of Heidegger’s enthusiastic membership in the Nazi Party. Surprisingly, the author mentions this fact only in a short epilogue detailing what happened to the four philosophers in the years following the decade he surveys. Should the reader care to look, however, the line between Heidegger’s elitist philosophy and his National Socialism is clear and chilling enough ... The book’s sprightly prose, delivered in short, subheaded sections, creates a sometimes dizzying narrative in which the characters come to life more than their ideas. One reason is that the philosophies of all four men are difficult to pin down and even harder to summarize. Another is that, with so much ground to cover, a lot is glossed over, alluded to or omitted. The reader is left wanting more but sometimes unsure as to what that more even is.

It’s not a likely story, but Eilenberger tells it with free-wheeling gusto ... Eilenberger appeals to what he calls 'the spirit of the 1920s', which according to him involved bewilderment at the elusiveness of time, anxiety about the dehumanising effects of science, and amazement at 'the birth of an age of global communication'. He must be aware, however, that there is scarcely a decade in the last 500 years that could not be described in the same way. He is therefore reduced to tying his magicians together by means of biographical chatter. He cuts rapidly from one life to another, never shying away from sexual speculation, and summarises his results in breezy chapter headings ... The word 'meanwhile' is worked so hard that it dies of exhaustion half way through.

Eilenberger is not the first writer to suggest an affinity between Heidegger’s and Wittgenstein’s attempts, as he puts it, to 'merge philosophy and everyday life'. However, the case for including Benjamin, whose most enduring work was done in literary and cultural criticism, is much less persuasive. It seems to rest more on his personal antipathy towards the institution of academic philosophy than on any significant ideas he might have shared with the others ... That said, Eilenberger’s account of Benjamin’s increasingly desperate attempts to gain professional recognition (as well as his extravagant gift for self-sabotage) is highly entertaining. His treatment of what was a somewhat chequered decade for Wittgenstein is less original, and the biographical details will be familiar to anyone who has read Ray Monk’s definitive life of the Austrian philosopher ... Eilenberger makes no effort to gloss over the disastrous political commitment that Heidegger would make four years after Davos, when he accepted the rectorship of Freiburg University, an appointment in the gift of the new National Socialist regime in Berlin. But he is attentive to what the two men shared, as well as to what divided them

Eilenberger clearly lays out the evolving theories of each philosopher for a non-specialist audience, embedding the philosophical discussion in their often-dramatic professional and romantic lives and the rapidly evolving social worlds that they shared. The result is an engrossing history which also acts as an introduction to post-WWI European philosophical thinking.

Areadable, expert introduction to some of the most abstruse yet influential philosophical thought of the 20th century ... Ably translated by Whiteside, Eilenberger’s book is the kind of limpid presentation of Continental philosophical expression rare in books about the subject. It’s an achievement that has already won plaudits and prizes abroad. That’s no doubt due to the author’s own professional standing as a philosopher, but it also owes much to his approach: a multilayered exploration of the lives and thoughts of four very different thinkers at a time when Western and Central Europe struggled to emerge from war and economic crisis before slipping into the horrors of Nazism ... The book’s special value lies in greatly advancing accessibility to these men’s works and thought. So clear and sometimes jaunty is Eilenberger that no reader will miss out from understanding the narrative. One can complain only that he, too, rarely makes known his own views. Otherwise, his lucid presentation of his characters’ often hard-to-comprehend thinking and the muddy language in which they expressed it make this book invaluable for anyone seeking to learn about these extraordinary figures ... An exemplary work of scholarship that is comprehensible to everyone

Four intellectuals hash out puzzling new worldviews after WWI in this spirited yet murky historical study ... In Whiteside’s serviceable translation, Eilenberger gamely tries to elucidate his subjects’ famously knotty ideas, but the results...often confirm just how difficult to parse those concepts were. Still, this comprehensive and well-informed treatment deserves credit for bringing four major philosophers down from the heights of abstraction.