Man, born into an empty, godless universe, is nothing to begin with. The idea of freedom occupies the center of Sartre’s doctrine. The published text of his lecture quickly became one of the bibles of existentialism and made Sartre an international celebrity. Sartre asserted that existentialism was essentially a doctrine for philosophers, though, ironically, he was about to make it accessible to a general audience. The unstated objective of his lecture (“Existentialism Is a Humanism”) was to expound his philosophy as a form of “existentialism,” a term much bandied about at the time. It was to correct common misconceptions about his thought that Jean-Paul Sartre, the most dominent European intellectual of the post-World War II decades, accepted an invitation to speak on October 29, 1945, at the Club Maintenant in Paris. At once a memoir, a meditation, a treatise, and a history, it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living. A 1991 Library of Congress survey that asked readers to name a 'book that made a difference in your life' found Man's Search for Meaning among the ten most influential books in America. In the decades since its first publication in 1959, Man's Search for Meaning has become a classic, with more than twelve million copies in print around the world. Frankl's theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ('meaning')-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful. Based on his own experience and the stories of his many patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Between 19 psychiatrist Viktor Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Man's Search for Meaning has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival.

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