Although it never garnered the intellectual prestige reserved for his contemporary Walter Benjamin’s critical zingers, Stefan Zweig’s work has recently enjoyed a revival at the hands of two publishers. Zweig’s legacy is that of a conflicted yet devoted proponent of liberalism, who struggled to understand the function of the humanities in World War II-era Vienna but defended them all the same:
An idea which does not take on material shape is not necessarily a conquered idea or a false idea; it may represent a need which, though its gratification be postponed, is and remains a need.
