One of the most important philosophy titles published in the twentieth century, Josef Pieper’s Leisure, the Basis of Culture is more significant, even more crucial, today than it was when it first appeared more than fifty years ago.

Pieper points out that religion can be born only in leisure – a leisure that allows time for the contemplation of the nature of God. Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture. He maintains that our bourgeois world of total labor has vanquished leisure, and issues a startling warning: Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture – and ourselves.

“Pieper’s message for us is plain. . . . The idolatry of the machine, the worship of mindless know-how, the infantile cult of youth and the common mind – all this points to our peculiar leadership in the drift toward the slave society. . . . Pieper’s profound insights are impressive and even formidable.” – New York Times Book Review

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Leisure, the Basis of Culture
Josef Pieper
New introduction by Roger Scruton; New translation by Gerald Malsbary

176 pages, 5½” x 8½”, paperback,
introduction, notes, retrospective
reviews world rights in English
(paperback only)
ISBN: 1-890318-35-3, 1998
$12.00sp (£8.00)