When we understand ourselves today as individuals who are crafting their own biographies and want to determine their lives as freely as possible, this is not a historical given. Jacob Burckhardt vividly and understandably describes how the complex world of the modern individual came into being - with all its demands, hopes, and crises. A classic of cultural history, in which the first great epoch of modernity appears as the birth hour of our present. With a contribution from Kindler's Literary Lexicon. Includes data on life and work, exclusively written by the editorial team of the literary journal TEXT + KRITIK.