An examination of authenticity as a revolutionary concept。 In this acclaimed exploration of the search for “authentic†individual identity， Marshall Berman explores the historical experiences and needs out of which this new radicalism arose。 Focussing on eighteenth-century Paris， a time and place in which a distinctively modern form of society was just coming into its own， Berman shows how the ideal of authenticity of a "self that could organize the individual's energy and direct it toward his own happiness” articulated eighteenth-century man's deepest responses to this brave new world， and his most ardent hope for a new life in it。 Exploring in particular the ideas of Montesquieu and Rousseau， Berman shows how the ideal of authenticity was radically opposed to the bourgeois， capitalistic idea of self-interest。