The Century of French Intellectuals - (Full Three Volumes)

Author: Michel Vinokur
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: If Barres had not been born, if Barres had not written, then his era would have been a different scene, and we would also be different from now. I believe that in contemporary France, no living person has engaged in literary creation that can compare to Barres. Barres created, introduced to the world, and accepted by the world, not a temporary framework of a system, but something that goes deeper into our lives, a new attitude, a strange way of thinking, a brand-new way of perceiving. – Léon Blum
In the past three decades, the various ideas of France, whether people like it or not, and regardless of their origins, whether Marxist thought, Hegelian thought, or Kierkegaardian thought, must be referenced to Guide to explain their characteristics. – Jean-Paul Sartre
Sartre will multiply the value of the entire young generation seeking new paths, and the movement that is brewing – brewing solemnly – will soon spread. A new generation of pillars is being born, on whom the hopes of tomorrow will be entrusted. And us, we can only wait to step off the historical stage; some will be condemned, and others will be forgotten by posterity – Roger Martin du Gard
This chronicle of French intellectuals is more than a history of individuals, ideas, and works (though it is indeed a history of this kind), but rather a history of the friendships, conflicts, or hatreds between these people. When looking back at the era of Barres, the era of Guide, and the era of Sartre, we seem to return to those years of dramatic events and unrest, and we also grasp their symbolic significance. We see again the vivid figures – the main and supporting characters from the historical stage, who all tried to influence the century in which they lived with their thoughts and actions. Through these vivid images, the history of France in the 20th century is presented before us, from the Dreyfus Affair that symbolized the beginning of the intellectual era to the death of Sartre and Aron, which rang the death knell for the intellectual century. However, Michel Vinokur still doubts the notion of the end of intellectuals.