Utopian philosopher Ernst Bloch developed a philosophy of hope which expands conventional German and Marxian approaches to a vast array of forms of culture, politics, and everyday life, while providing a rich treasure houses of cultural criticism and historical, philosophical, and political critique, combined with wide-ranging philosophical speculation. Indeed, Bloch emerges from the ruins of the 20th century – whose major catastrophes he lived through, reflected upon, protested, and wrote about – as a producer of a canopy of radical ideas, startling images, and mind-boggling texts which provide beacons of light into the dark recesses of history, society, and everyday life, and that illuminate the slaughterhouse of history and political upheavals of the twentieth century. The Spirit of Utopia, published in 1918, contained Bloch's initial attempt to mediate Marxian materialism and socialism with the messianic spirit of the Bible and great world religions. Bloch anticipated and criticized the rise of Nazi and fascist ideology in books like Heritage of Our Times and a wide range of essays and lecture. The Principle of Hope was written during his emigration in the United States from Nazi Germany and became an influential source of thinking in theology, philosophy, and aesthetics.