Arthur Schopenhauer continues to be one of the most widely read philosophers outside of academe, and it is only a slight exaggeration to say that academics have paid him more attention in the last thirty years than they have in any period following the publication of his philosophical masterpiece, The World as Will and Representation, which appeared in December 1818. This remark, however, is not an exaggeration at all if it is restricted to Anglo-American scholars. Schopenhauer's broad popularity is relatively easy to understand, as is the resurgence of interest among scholars. In addition to addressing traditional topics in aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics in the rigorous and specialized forms favored by philosophers, his fifty-year quest to discover and explain the meaning of the totality of experience led him to investigate almost every significant aspect of human experience. Ever the perennialist, he dealt with universal themes concerning the human condition, such as love, sex, suffering, death, the meaning and value of life, and redemption. He also explored phenomena neglected by many philosophers, including colors, genius, homosexuality, humor, madness, the metaphysics of music, the moral status of animals, mysticism, paranormal phenomena, and weeping. Always committed to the truth, he trailed its spurs wherever its track steered. Seldom worrying about writing to please, he stated the truth as he saw it. His voracious curiosity and cosmopolitan sensibilities made him the first major Western philosopher to seriously consider Eastern thought.