Hailed by Andre Gide as the patron saint of all outsiders, Simone Weil's short life was ample testimony to her
beliefs. In 1943, the final year of her life, unable to join the resistance movement in France, she worked in London
for the Free French government in exile. Here she was commissioned to outline a plan for the renewal of Europe
after the scourge of Nazism. The Need for Roots was the direct result. In it she seized the opportunity to denounce
the false values of contemporary civilization. In the cult of materialism she witnessed a devastating loss of spirit
and consequently of human values. To counteract this she sets out a radical vision for spiritual and political
renewal with a passion for truth which sweeps through these pages. The book has become a lasting spiritual testament
for our age, where we are confronted, as T.S. Eliot comments, by a 'genius akin to that of the saints'.