Intellectuals and Politics in Post-War France

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 Lévy 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.

'Drake has an unusual gift of being able to step back and look across the Channel with equanimity, without even a touch of superciliousness, and present to the reader a true cacophony of highly literate and highly combative voices in such a way that a foreigner can hear them, can grasp the motivations behind and the rationales for more than a half-century of French intellectuals' descending from the ivory tower into the harsh, often confused world of socio-political actuality.' - David L. Schalk, Vassar College, for H-France

DAVID DRAKE is Principal Lecturer in French at Middlesex University. He is the Secretary of the UK Society for Sartrean Studies and his articles and book reviews on French intellectuals (especially Sartre) and French politics and society have appeared in a number of publications including the Times Literary Supplement, the Times Higher Educational Supplement, the Financial Times, Sartre Studies International, Contemporary French Civilization, Journal of European Studies and Modern and Contemporary France.