Gadamer’s life wove together many different inspirations as he lived through the decades of the twentieth century, passing from German Pietist readings and symbolist poetry, through the powerful intellectual forces of Marburg and post-war Germany’s demands for a new ethos, to times in which Truth and Method’s growing fame helped him engage with modernism, globalism, and the dangers of nuclear and ecological disaster. This chapter tells a story of Gadamer’s life that focuses on those experiences and influences which gave shape to his widest philosophical aims.