Ernst Bloch is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. At the center of his philosophy, shaped by Marxism, Enlightenment, and traditional Jewish-Christian concepts, is always the human being and the utopia of a more humane society guided by the principle of hope, "something that seems to everyone like childhood and in which no one has yet been: home." The biography by Arno Münster, which was heavily debated before its first publication, richly details Bloch's life and work, tracing his journey from a highly talented young philosopher and anti-fascist emigrant to the author of a monumental, metaphysical encyclopedia and one of the fathers of the student movement.