Jonathan Beckman
Raison d’Etre
How the French Think: An Affectionate Portrait of an Intellectual People
By Sudhir Hazareesingh
Allen Lane 415pp £20
No books hold so many hostages to fortunes as those about national character. They leave themselves open to charges of crude essentialising and inevitable incompleteness. Counter examples will be brandished like trumps and gripes aired about some crucial overlooked behaviour or attitude that supposedly encapsulates a people. But in the case of the French, as Sudhir Hazareesingh’s erudite new study shows, such an approach might work.
How the French Think is not quite a book about mentalités and not quite a history of ideas. It is a book about how, in the modern era, the French have imagined their country into existence, about what aspirations they have had for it and what kind of people the French need to be to fulfil those aspirations. With the pertinent exception of Descartes, there is no room for thinkers from before the 18th
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk