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How the French think : an affectionate portrait of an intellectual people / Sudhir Hazareesingh.

by Hazareesingh, Sudhir.

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Basic Books, [2015]

Philosophy, French.

France -- Intellectual life -- 21st century.

9780465032495 (hc.)

0465032494 (hc.)

xii, 338 p. ; 25 cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

A yearning toward universality -- The skull of Descartes -- Darkness and light -- Landscapes of Utopia -- The ideals of science -- To the left, and to the right -- The sum of their parts -- New paths to the present -- Freedom and domination -- Writing for everybody -- The end of history -- The closing of the French mind -- Anxiety and optimism.

Historian Sudhir Hazareesingh tells the epic and tumultuous story of French intellectual thought from Descartes, Rousseau, and Auguste Comte to Sartre, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Derrida. He shows how French thinking has shaped fundamental Westerns ideas about freedom, rationality, and justice, and how the French mind-set is intimately connected to their own way of life - in particular to the French tendency towards individualism, their passion for nature, their celebration of their historical heritage, and their fascination with death. Hazareesingh explores the French veneration of dissent and skepticism, from Voltaire to the Dreyfus Affair and beyond; the obsession with the protection of French language and culture; the rhetorical flair embodied by the philosophes, which today’s intellectuals still try to recapture; the astonishing influence of French postmodern thinkers, including Foucault and Barthes, on postwar American education and life, and also the growing French anxiety about a globalized world order under American hegemony. How the French Think sweeps aside generalizations and easy stereotypes to offer an incisive and revealing exploration of the French intellectual tradition.

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