Camus and Sartre: A Legendary Friendship and Its Collapse

Author: Ronald Aronson
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2005-04-04
Features: A legendary story of the European intellectual world in the 20th century, two literary giants continued to form a watershed in the history of thought. This is an exciting book. It traces the development of the political thought of the two protagonists with an exemplary impartiality, accurately identifying their strengths and blind spots. The book is rich in new insights and convincing interpretations of historical events. I really hope Camus and Sartre could read Ronald Aronson's masterpiece. Perhaps it would enlighten both of them. — Hazel Barnes, author of My Own Story: A Existential Autobiographical Adventure
The Camus-Sartre debate evokes an era when the two giants of the Left Bank intellectual world commanded the respect of the world. In Camus and Sartre, Ronald Aronson, the most important Sartre scholar in the English-speaking world, tells the legendary story of this "brotherly rivalry" between the two brothers with clarity, wisdom, and insight. — Richard Wolin, a renowned professor of history and comparative literature at the State University of New York
The book begins with the friendship between Camus and Sartre, then quarrels over ideological differences, their mutual influence, and ultimately, hostile mutual hostility. To this day, this relationship still sparks heated debate in the intellectual world. — Dong Dingshan
So far, we have not been able to read a complete story about the relationship between Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Their dramatic break during the height of the Cold War, like the Cold War conflict itself, forces those who trace its origins to take sides rather than unravel its tragic complexity. Now, Ronald Aronson uses new sources to write a full-length account of this 20th-century most famous friendship and its end.
Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre first met in 1943 during the German occupation of France and quickly became friends. They formed allies in thought and politics, becoming famous overnight with the liberation of Paris. As playwrights, novelists, philosophers, journalists, and editors, the two seemed omnipresent, with every French media outlet following their lead after the war. However, the Eastern-Western relationship injected tension into their friendship, and their paths diverged, leading to disagreements over philosophy, the responsibilities of intellectuals, and the kind of political change that was necessary or possible. When Camus and Sartre successively took over the role of public spokespersons for their respective sides, a historic showdown became inevitable. Sartre believed in violence as a path to change, while Camus firmly opposed it, which ultimately led to the brutal and highly publicized split in 1952. They cut off all contact and continued to attack each other indirectly until Camus's death in 1960.
In a report known for its meticulous attention to detail and impartiality, Aronson chronicles this fascinating story, showing how Camus and Sartre went from mutual admiration to open hostility and continued to each other after the break. Camus and Sartre blends biography and intellectual history, philosophical passion and political fervor, and will captivate every reader interested in the two great writers or the world-historical issues that divided them.