Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century France : Mandarins and Samurais

This book examines the role and place of the intellectual in twentieth-century French society. The essays are for the most part written by eminent French scholars and make available to the English-speaking reader a growing body of research which explores the ethical and historical issues raised by the prominence of the intellectual in politics since the Dreyfus Affair. The volume concludes with an examination of the contrasting and complementary roles of the French and British intellectual. Since the time of the Dreyfus Affair the intellectual in France has occupied a privileged position. Both revered and vilified, his voice has been accorded a special importance in the debates that have wracked the French body politic. Yet today the French intellectual is an endangered species, reduced to virtual silence. The essays in this volume, written for the most part by eminent French scholars and spanning a range of academic disciplines, are intended to explore the diverse ethical and historical issues raised by the French intellectual's prominence in the twentieth century and by his supposed demise in the last two decades. If the intellectual has embraced the rights of man and Marxism then so too he has been a collaborator. The self-image of disinterested service to a just cause and of personal emancipation has been matched by ambition and by moral conformism. Respect for the intellect has existed alongside a powerful tradition of anti-intellectualism. But has the French intellectual been a special case? Has his experience been so different from that of his British counterpart, especially in recent years? It is with a discussion of this question that the volume concludes Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Introduction: Mandarins and Samurais: The Intellectual in Modern France....Pages 1-32 Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who is the True Intellectual of Them All? Self-images of the Intellectual in France....Pages 33-58 Intellectuals as Actors: Image and Reality....Pages 59-81 The Concept of an Intellectual Generation....Pages 82-93 Academics or Intellectuals? The Professors of the University of Paris and Political Debate in France from the Dreyfus Affair to the Algerian War....Pages 94-116 Intellectuals, Pacifism and Communism: The Mandarins and the Struggle for Peace (1914–53)....Pages 117-139 French Intellectuals and a German Europe: An Aspect of Collaboration....Pages 140-156 Anti-intellectualism in French Political Culture....Pages 157-176 The Intellectual, the Historian and the Journalist....Pages 177-186 About Intellectuals....Pages 187-198 Intellectuals in Britain and France in the Twentieth Century: Confusions, Contrasts — and Convergence?....Pages 199-225 Back Matter....Pages 227-233