In the years 1934 and 1935, Simone Weil recorded her experiences in a factory in a diary that is rightly considered one of the most important political documents of that era. There is no other piece of political literature from the working world of that time that is comparable in significance. Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a philosopher. She managed to unite great contrasts in her thinking and actions: she held pacifist views while simultaneously fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and she embraced both rational and mystical perspectives.