The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron and the French Twentieth Century

Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. (1998). First Edition. Hardcover. 0226414183 . No signatures. No tears to dust wrapper. Dust wrapper protected in archival mylar cover. ; First printing. 196 pages. Black cloth boards with silver lettering on spine. Philosophy, social history, intellectuals, fascism, socialism, communism, existentialism, biography, politics, Leon Blum, Albert Camus, Raymond Aron. "Using the lives of three French intellectuals of the 20th century, this text looks at how intellectuals can ignore political pressures and demonstrate a heroic commitment to personal integrity unfettered by the difficult exigencies of their time. The text examines issues such as: antisemitism and the dilemma of Jewish identity; political and moral idealism in public life; the Marxist movement in French thought; the traumas of decolonization; the disaffection of the intelligentsia; and the insidious quarrels rending Right and Left. Particular emphasis is put on Leon Blum's leadership of the Popular Front and his defiance of the Vichy governments, on Albert Camus's part in the Resistance and Algerian War, and on Raymond Aron's cultural commentary and opposition to the facile acceptance by many French intellectuals of communism's utopian promise." ; 8vo .