The essayist, Jonathan Franzen writes, is like "a fire-fighter, whose job, while everyone else is fleeing the flames of shame, is to run straight into them." For the past twenty-five years, even as his novels have earned him worldwide acclaim, Franzen has led a second life as a risk-taking essayist. Now, at a moment when technology has inflamed tribal hatreds and the planet is beset by unnatural calamities, he is back with a new collection of essays that recall us to more humane ways of being in the world. Whatever his subject, Franzen's essays are always skeptical of received opinion, steeped in irony, and frank about his own feelings. Calm, poignant, carefully argued, full of wit, The End of the End of the Earth provides a welcome breath of hope and reason.