Fascism, communism, genocide, slavery, racism, imperialism--the West has no shortage of reasons for guilt. And, indeed, since the Holocaust and the end of World War II, Europeans in particular have been consumed by remorse. But Pascal Bruckner argues that guilt has now gone too far. It has become a pathology, and even an obstacle to fighting today's atrocities. Bruckner, one of France's leading writers and public intellectuals, argues that obsessive guilt has obscured important realities. ...

Pascal Bruckner's memoir reads like a novel, a Bildungsroman which charts his journey from pious Catholic child to leading philosopher and writer on French culture.The key figure in Bruckner's life is his father, a virulent anti-Semite, who voluntarily went to work in Germany during the Second World War. He is a violent man who beats his wife. The young Bruckner soon reacts against his father and his revenge is to become his polar opposite, even to the point of being happy to be cal...

Leon shrinks every time he fathers a child with his Amazonian wife until he is the size of a thimble and at the mercy of his own children and the cat.

The diminutive Leon is the envy of all Paris when he becomes engaged to the successful stomatologist and ravishing 6ft beauty Solange, who leaves no man unstirred - including the priest who weds them. The dutiful husband happily ignores jealous remarks about the union of 'giraffe and zebra' as he sires one beautiful baby after another. But as his domestic bliss with Solange continues and their brood grows, Leon's body begins to shrink - with the exception of one vital organ - until the med...

Money is an evil that does good, and a good that does evil. It inspires hymns to the prosperity it enables, manifestos about the poor it leaves behind, and diatribes for its corrosion of morality. In The Wisdom of Money, one of the world’s great essayists guides us through the rich commentary that money has generated since ancient times—both the passions and the resentments—as he builds an unfashionable defense of the worldly wisdom of the bourgeoisie.Bruckner begins with ...

A provocative reflection on the dilemmas of modern loveThe sexual revolution is justly celebrated for the freedoms it brought—birth control, the decriminalization of abortion, the liberalization of divorce, greater equality between the sexes, women's massive entry into the workforce, and more tolerance of homosexuality. But as Pascal Bruckner, one of France's leading writers, argues in this lively and provocative reflection on the contradictions of modern love, our...

How happiness became mandatory—and why we should reject the demand to "be happy"Happiness today is not just a possibility or an option but a requirement and a duty. To fail to be happy is to fail utterly. Happiness has become a religion—one whose smiley-faced god looks down in rebuke upon everyone who hasn't yet attained the blessed state of perpetual euphoria. How has a liberating principle of the Enlightenment—the right to pursue happiness—become the unavoidable ...

Deciphering the New Antisemitism addresses the increasing prevalence of antisemitism on a global scale. Antisemitism takes on various forms in all parts of the world, and the essays in this wide-ranging volume deal with many of them: European antisemitism, antisemitism and Islamophobia, antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and efforts to demonize and delegitimize Israel. Contributors are an international group of scholars who clarify the cultural, intellectual, political, and religious condition...

Pascal Bruckner's memoir reads like a novel, a Bildungsroman which charts his journey from pious Catholic child to leading philosopher and writer on French culture. The key figure in Bruckner's life is his father, a virulent anti-Semite, who voluntarily went to work in Germany during the Second World War. He is a violent man who beats his wife. The young Bruckner soon reacts against his father and his revenge is to become his polar opposite, even to the point of being happy to be called a ...

The phenomenal number one bestseller and a major BBC TV series.A Richard and Judy Book Club Pick.Winner of the Specsavers National Book Award and Waterstones Book of the Year.**Beautiful, intoxicating and filled with heart-pounding suspense, Jessie Burton's historical novel set in Amsterdam, The Miniaturist, is a story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution.'Completely immerses the reader in ...

In this collection of essays, Gilbert Achcar examines the controversial relationship of Marxism to religion, to Orientalism and its critique by Edward Said, and to the concept of cosmopolitanism. A compelling range of issues is discussed within these pages, including a comparative assessment of Christian liberation theology and Islamic fundamentalism; "Orientalism in reverse", which can take the form of an apology for Islamic fundamentalism; the evolution of Marx's appraisal of non-Western...

“This century’s most compelling theorist of racism and colonialism.”—Angela DavisThe sixtieth anniversary edition of Frantz Fanon’s landmark text, now with a new introduction by Cornel WestFirst published in 1961, and reissued in this sixtieth anniversary edition with a powerful new introduction by Cornel West, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth is a masterful and timeless interrogation of race, colonialism, psychological tra...