French Politics, Society and Culture
2 total works
French Intellectuals and Politics from the Dreyfus Affair to the Occupation
by D. Drake
Published 1 January 2005
This accessible and readable account analyses the political stances adopted by French writers and artists from the end of the nineteenth century to the Liberation. Opening with the 'Birth of the Intellectuals' during the Dreyfus Affair in the 1890s, it traces the political commitment of French intellectuals through World War One, and their subsequent responses to communism, pacifism, surrealism, the rise of fascism and the Occupation. It is a companion volume to Drake's Intellectuals and Politics in Post-War France (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) and will be of interest to students of French cultural and intellectual history.
What did French intellectuals have to say about Gaullism, the Cold War colonialism, the women's movement, and the events of May '68? David Drake examines the political commitment of intellectuals in France from Sartre and Camus to Bernard-Henri Levy and Bourdieu. In this accessible study, he explores why there was a radical reassessment of the intellectual's role in the mid 1970s-80s and how a new generation engaged with Islam, racism, the Balkan Wars and the strikes of 1995.