Wolfram Eilenberger’s new book, *The Spirit of Modernity* (2024), explores the intellectual quests of the turbulent post-war era. The global upheavals of the 1930s and 1940s—a time when old ideals seemed consigned to oblivion—gave way to an unstable period of change that proved fertile ground for the emergence of new, non-classical schools of thought. Eilenberger focuses on four figures who shaped the evolution of modern philosophy, science, and culture: Theodor Adorno, Susan Sontag, Michel Foucault, and Paul Feyerabend. Each developed a distinctive critical project—ranging from *Negative Dialectics* and *Against Method* to critiques of power, violence, discourse, and rationality. Accompanying these figures, the author embarks on a captivating journey that takes him through Frankfurt, Berkeley, New York, Vienna, and Harvard, ultimately concluding with Foucault’s death in Paris. Along the way, he encounters other brilliant thinkers of the era, such as Walter Benjamin, Karl Popper, Jürgen Habermas, and Herbert Marcuse. By reflecting on the phenomena and ideas of the past—and delving into discussions surrounding the events of May 1968, the Vietnam War, and the concept of "camp" in art—Eilenberger seeks to gain insight into our present and to trace the origins of the spirit of modernity.