Albert Schweitzer - Out of my life and thought

I bought this slim paperback perhaps 30 years ago, for $0.40 at McKay Used Books in Knoxville.  In need of a quick palette cleanse, I ripped through it this week.

Although most well known for the hospital he founded and led in equatorial Africa, it turns out that Schweitzer was something of a polymath, a latter day DaVinci.  I would estimate only 5-10% of the book recounts his time spent in Africa.

He was also renowned as a preacher, a writer of philosophical works, and a celebrated organist and Bach expert.

Schweitzer hailed originally from the Strasbourg region, which began his life as part of Germany, ending as part of France, changing hands as a result of WWI.  This unique perspective over the course of both WWI and WWII elevated him in my mind to a man-of-the-world, the very opposite of a nationalist, a concept which he abhorred.

I skipped over most of his philosophical and religious thinking; my interest centered on his philanthropic work, which was ground breaking and thoroughly interesting, if only one part of his prolific life.