Accident

"That [Hamilton] has alighted on a strikingly original vein of inquiry, to which he brings remarkable intellectual resources, is not in doubt. One wonders whether the idea of the book just idly struck him, or whether it loomed up with a certain implacable necessity." -- Terry Eagleton * London Review of Books *
“Accident is a considerable achievement. An informative, fascinating and thought-provoking book, it results from a bold and original undertaking and is the fruit of an impressive amount of research and reflection. In tracing a history of Western thought, it grapples with the difficulty of perceiving and conceptualizing historical change itself. It successfully relates particular configurations of thought to broad cultural developments and to the mutations of subjectivity. In opening up new perspectives on the power of accident, Hamilton addresses nothing less than the question of what it means to be human.” * Romantic Review *
"From St. Augustine to Buster Keaton, through Tristram Shandy and Alien, Hamilton follows his own radical line of inquiry into the nature and meaning of accident, almost creating in the process an entire new philosophical discipline." -- Barnes and Noble Review * James Parker *
"Readers will get the impression that an excellent teacher . . . . is guiding them across millennia. . . . Specialists in English and comparative literature and those teaching undergraduate humanities courses will be well served by this book." . * Choice *

“Ross Hamilton's Accident: A Philosophical and Literary History is a highly erudite comparative study….Displaying not only great literary-historical, comparative, and philosophical breadth but also rich interpretive depth, this study demonstrates something that could be called prismatic ingenuity, illuminating multiple aspects of ‘accident,’ many of which are far from obvious.”

* ACLA Harry Levin Prize, 2009 Winner *
"Hamilton presta atención a lo accidental [. . .] lo cual da lugar a este muy sugerente recorrido por el concepto, sus transformaciones, y el subrayado de la total dependencia de su génesis aristotélica." -- Sixto J. Castro * Estudios Filosóficos *

 “This book is a remarkable contribution to a comprehensive definition of modernity. It deserves the greatest attention, for it takes full account of the background and the main symptoms of the modern mind, both in philosophy and in literature.”

-- Jean Starobinski
“Sigmund Freud told us there were no accidents. Everything that could happen to us was already ourselves. Ross Hamilton’s extraordinary book both confirms and subtly extends Freud by showing that his was only a partial truth. In Hamilton’s vision, we are a living labyrinth in which accidents do happen but are never as gratuitous as they may seem.” -- Harold Bloom

“I am impressed by the diversity and range of the learning Ross Hamilton applies to a difficult and varied topic, largely invented by himself. A new topic, a new way of dealing with it, and a philosophical/literary treatment by a good writer—surely it will attract informed attention.”

-- Frank Kermode

“Beautifully and lucidly written, Accident balances a series of elegant and convincing close readings—­always supported by an impressive command of the critical terms—­of texts from Oedipus Rex through Musil’s Man without Qualities with a compelling and closely reasoned narrative arc. This is one of the most exciting, imaginative, and original books I’ve read in years, as well as one of the most accomplished and learned: it is truly innovative literary criticism grounded in solid literary scholarship.”­—Helen Deutsch, University of California, Los Angeles

* Helen Deutsch *