In this intellectual biography, critic and philosopher Boris Groys turns to the Arthur Rimbaud of modern bureaucracy, Alexandre Koj�ve, a philosopher of little-known writings and profound influence. Koj�ve was fascinated with Hegel's dialectics and with communism and envisioned a universal empire as the end of history. Koj�ve drew on Buddhism and also proclaimed himself a Stalinist. At the same time, he was one of the creators of a nascent European Union. His concept of the human as something defined by negation and unique among animals in being separated from nature is highly political. It explains why humans can never be fully satisfied by a political system based on their allegedly 'natural' rights.

Groys reveals a Koj�ve with a unique perspective on our political capacities and human condition.