Book launch: Ed Simon, Devil’s Contract. The History of the Faustian Bargain
,  (Melville House Publishing, 2024). With Ed Simon in conversation with Mark Lilla.

“Marlowe staged Dr. Faustus at the very beginning of what is increasingly being called the Anthropocene, the geological epoch in which humanity was finally able to impose its will upon the earth. There are costs to any such contract, as the wisdom of the legend has it, so that it’s worth considering after five centuries of human domination of the planet that we might now be facing our own collective appointment at Deptford. We seem to finally be facing the final act, the apocalyptic tenor of our times, from climate change to nuclear brinkmanship making the continued survival of humanity an open question, our sad predicament the result of hubris, and greed, and vainglory. It may be appropriate to rechristen this age the Faustocene. Because whether or not the Devil is real, his effects in the world are.”

A fascinating and accessible narrative of the Faustian bargain throughout the ages, Devil’s Contract juxtaposes humanity’s choices with the history of the Devil and suggests how we arrived where we are today. 

From ancient times to the modern world, the idea of the Faustian bargain — the exchange of one’s soul in return for untold riches and power — has exerted a magnetic pull upon our collective imaginations.

Scholar Ed Simon takes us on a historical tour of the Faustian bargain, from biblical themes to bluesman Robert Johnson, and illustrates how the instinct for sacrificing our principles in exchange for power models all kinds of social ills, from colonialism to nuclear warfare, and even social media, climate change, and AI. In doing so, Simon conveys just how much the Faustian bargain shows us about power and evil … and about ourselves.

Ed Simon iis the Public Humanities Special Faculty in the English Department of Carnegie Mellon University and editor in chief of Belt Magazine. A staff writer for the Millions, his essays and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Paris Review Daily, the New Republic, and the Washington Post. 

Mark Lilla is Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books.  Among his books are The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics and the forthcoming Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know.