The wartime book (1942-1943) includes essays dedicated to outstanding literary figures such as Defoe, Balzac, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Gide, and Witkiewicz, as well as philosophical texts by James, Nietzsche, and Bergson. The book also features a polemical correspondence between Czesław Miłosz and Jerzy Andrzejewski.

By exploring contemporary myths and prejudices and appealing to the tradition of rationalism, Miłosz seeks to find points of support for European culture, which has been humbled by two world wars.