Comprendre le XXe siecle francais

‘Thinking the French Revolution’ was François Furet's title for a collection of seminal articles that are still a benchmark, thirty years on, for those who want to reflect deeply about that crucial period of French history. The eminent French historian Jean-François Sirinelli now invites us, in this much larger volume of essays, to ‘understand’ the twentieth century as it has been experienced in France. In both cases, the essayist has, in choosing his terms, hinted at the reflexive nature of the action of thinking, or understanding. In Sirinelli's case, this self-consciousness is peculiarly apt, because here we are required to dwell on the problems of a historian who has considerable status as a public intellectual. Sirinelli is not quite a modern Sartre; but he participates readily in public arguments about modern French culture and ideas in much the same way as his subjects, Sartre and Aron, used to do, particularly

Aesthetics · Consciousness · Epistemology · French · French revolution · Humanities · Period (music · Political science · Politics · Reflexivity · Social science · Sociology · European Political History Analysis · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy