cover image The Return of Courage

The Return of Courage

Shreiber Jean Louis Servan, Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber, Servan Schreiber Jean Louis. Addison Wesley Publishing Company, $13.66 (144pp) ISBN 978-0-201-12207-7

Servan-Schreiber's short, bracing pep talk is partly a celebration of the courage that Everywoman or Everyman musters in the daily business of living. To be courageous, this French journalist argues, we have to accept our fundamental solitude. Courage means stirring oneself to action in spite of the certainty of death. On another level, his book is an informal sociological analysis of modern conditions that test our courageloosening of family ties, personal isolation, breakdown of ideologies, job insecurity, divorce. Trade unions are passe because ""mass action has reached the limits of its effectiveness.'' Support networks are in. This essay wittily contrasts New York, capital of stress, with Prague, capital of emotional depression, as the author works out guidelines to promote personal survival. (September 17)