The Embrace of Unreason: France 1914-1940. By Frederick Brown. Knopf; 368 pages; $27.95. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.ukEVER since 1789, France has served as a metaphor: the national embodiment of universalist ideals that transcend even the holy triumvirate of liberté, égalité, fraternité. Guillotine aside, the home of Voltaire and Montesquieu became, after the revolution, a symbol for the entire project of the Enlightenment: most importantly, the triumph of human reason over the caprice of circumstance.But certain French intellectuals never accepted these principles. After the revolution the likes of Louis de Bonald, Joseph de Maistre and Pierre-Simon Ballanche advocated the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy and the political pre-eminence of the Catholic church. Later in the 19th century, after the French army was embarrassed by the loss of Alsace-Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71) and the subsequent Paris Commune uprising, that counter-revolutionary struggle moved even further to the right.In a time of national soul-searching, a generation...
from The Economist: Books and arts http://ift.tt/1jV6f09
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