Every Man for Himself and God against All

From a hungry childhood in rural Bavaria to exploring volcanoes, jungles and the vastness of Antarctica, Herzog tells the story behind his appetite for the impossible.

Werner Herzog has built an extraordinary career around extremes: constructing an opera house in the jungle, walking from Munich to Paris in winter, descending into an active volcano and working in landscapes where danger is ever present. In this memoir, those obsessions not just illuminate his filmmaking but become part of a larger life story.

Starting with his deprived childhood in post-war Bavaria, Herzog takes the reader through decades of filmmaking and travel, adventure and creativity in pursuit of the same question: what are human beings capable of when ordinary limits fall away?

Every Man for Himself and God against All reveals the experiences and ideas that shaped Herzog's singular view of the world, including the moments when pursuing an image meant putting himself in genuine danger.

'A visionary masterpiece’ John Gray, New Statesman