Amazon.co.uk:Customer reviews: Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944-1956

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 January 2019

Having read ‘Postwar’ and ‘The Burden of Responsibility’ by Tony Judt and found them unique accounts of Europe since the end of WW2 and his selection of the 3 most distinguished Frenchmen who avoided the illusion of communism, Blum, Camus and Aron, it was for me a logical step to reading ‘Past Imperfect’ about the way the French intellectual came to such prominence on the back of utopian socialism in the period 1944-1956. I’ve never read such a savage, yet well-researched account of the term ‘intellectual’ right up to the ‘trahaison des clercs’. He literally read 100s of books, journals, memoirs, histories, and articles written by the French Left and the Catholic school of writers like Mauriac. Judt’s contention is that the French Left who supported communism, never made moral judgements about it, having not developed a framework of justice about freedom and individual rights, common to English liberalism. Their refusal to criticise Stalinism, the Moscow show trials of dissidents, and the trials of Communists in Eastern Europe, who fell foul of the system, was justified they thought by communism working for the greater good and its resistance to Nazism, and the part it played in the French resistance. He also shows that prominent intellectuals like Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre, were unreliable guides as to what was happening, with their ideas of ‘engagement’ and ‘commitment’; these terms merely camouflaged their poor conscience and moral ambivalence. They also used belief in an independent Algeria to escape from their bad faith in dealing with implicit support for Stalinism of all the intellectual classes. They re-wrote history to suit their own narratives. Yet the French intellectual was at the peak of his/her influence in France and world-wide.

Taking the Dreyfus affair, Benda argued that the task of the intellectual is to seek truth and justice, to protect the rights of individuals-and then to align oneself with one side or another in the great choices of the age. But justice, truth and rights were ideologically redefined in the 30s. Benda emerged after the Liberation as a fellow-traveller of the Left defending show trials in Stalinist Eastern Europe. The experience of defeat, occupation and resistance created the assumptions, activity and context of post-war assumptions. France’s voice mattered more in the decade after the war than it had since 1815 . Judt like some judge of degrees of guilt of the intellectual classes in the court of history spares no punches and delivers knockout blows to Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Beauvoir. However in doing this, he pays no attention to their individual works of fiction and philosophy; doing this more in ‘The Burden of Responsibility’,a far kinder book, with time to dwell on the low hanging fruit. Judt is a vindictive moralist who indicts these intellectuals for their inhumanity in the face of suffering, and in failing to test their political thought against reality. After this the term ‘intellectual’ and the public intellectual would never have such prominence again anywhere, especially in France, despite attempts to ‘kill the father’.

5 people found this helpful

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J. Scott

ANALYSING LA TRAHISON DES CLERCS

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 November 2011

This book was written before the publication of Postwar made Tony Judt's reputation as a first rate historian. It has been republished after his death.
It is the work of a powerful intellect comfortable dealing with complex questions of political
philosophy and morality.
It is however very different from Postwar and the works which followed it.
It is a work of academic rather than popular history.
If you don't know who Mounier and Merleau-Ponty were, you would be advised to do some background reading.
You will probably find it worth the effort because Tony Judt has few - if any - rivals in explaining how French intellectuals were seduced by utopian socialism.
If French intellectuals do not have the eminence they had in the mid-20th century, Tony Judt's book goes a long way to explain their fall from grace.

10 people found this helpful

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Jose G.

Masterpiece

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 May 2013

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I "discovered Tony Judt two years ago and found that he is the perfect company to B. Russel, Gunther Grass, Albert Camus and Martin Gilbert.

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Dan

Tony Judt, Past Imperfect

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 April 2023

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Brilliant book. Judt is one of my favourite authors.

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recluse

日本と同じじゃないか？

Reviewed in Japan on 5 August 2003

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One person found this helpful

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Dr. Eckehart Koehler

Prima

Reviewed in Germany on 28 June 2013

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Tony Judt ist (leider war) der beste Autor zu diesem Thema, gerade weil er Frankreich auch vom angeksächsischen Standpunkt beurteilen kann.

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oldpappy

A Blot on French History

Reviewed in the United States on 20 September 2013

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I like the subject matter: an analysis of the hypocrises of French intellectuals in their persistent support of Stalinism in the face of revelations of slave labor camps that were an integral part of the Soviet economy. The reputations of Sartre and Simone De Beauvoir will never completely recover.

6 people found this helpful

Bernardo Garicochea

a masterpiece of our recent past

Reviewed in Brazil on 17 February 2023

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There is nothing more lucid about the french intellectuality of the post war. Tony Judt is a great writer. I could follow easily his lines of thought. This book goes to a honour place in mu shelf

B. Boeke

Not exactly balanced history

Reviewed in the United States on 27 April 2010

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Credit goes to Judt for persuasively arguing his point of view on French intellectuals - Sartre above all - and their softness on communism and the Soviet Union in the post-World War II context. It is at once an interesting and clearly written
book, and yet quite irritating in its tone, which tends towards the supercilious. Judt rarely has any doubts about his judgments about people or events, and a bit more modesty would do him greater credit as an historian. It would be all the more engaging if
he allowed the possibility that there are other viewpoints which have merit. That type of concession is found in his much finer volume on Aron, Camus and Blum, but not here. His polemical style and tone are not endearing, but this book is
still worth the read, and his viewpoint needs to be heard and considered, even if it is very one-sided. Judt is not the person to consult for a balanced, unbiased understanding of Sartre's politics, and he is, as usual, too much the apologist for Camus,
whose position on the Algerian war for independence never receives the critical analysis from Judt that is required. But Judt is just the person to consult as a corrective for those unaware of some of the absurdities which, indeed, were part of Sartre's
political engagements in the turbulence of the postwar world. Ironically, Judt somewhat resembles Sartre in his inability to listen to the opposite viewpoint! Still, no one in English has argued better than Judt this critique of French intellectuals'
seduction by the ideology of communism following the war. Strongly recommended, but with major reservations.

26 people found this helpful

David Birnbaum

For the serious reader,

Reviewed in the United States on 30 June 2018

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For the serious reader, this does much to explain France's intellectuals lpast ove of words and indifference to reality

3 people found this helpful

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