Book review: Resistance, Rebellion & Writing. Albert Camus’s dispatches on the Algerian crisis

Algerian Chronicles by Albert CamusReviewed by George Scialabba The problem of revolutionary violence was perhaps the most fateful question of political morality in the twentieth century. Two texts are indispensable to anyone wanting to engage that question: Camus’s “Neither Victims nor Executioners” (1946) and Sartre’s introduction to The Wretched of the Earth (1961), written one… Read More Book review: Resistance, Rebellion & Writing. Albert Camus’s dispatches on the Algerian crisis

9th August 202212th October 2022 Dilip

Invincible Summer – Albert Camus

In the depths of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer – Albert Camus; The Stranger Heroism isn’t much… happiness is more difficult – Letters to a German friend Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only goal worth struggling… Read More Invincible Summer – Albert Camus

6th August 202223rd August 2023 Dilip

Sanskrit translation of Don Quixote rescued from oblivion

There is an adjective that all too invitingly describes the wildly optimistic endeavours of the American book collector, the Hungarian-British explorer and the two Kashmiri pandits who, almost a century ago, took it upon themselves to translate Don Quixote into Sanskrit for the first time. Today, the same word might equally be applied to the… Read More Sanskrit translation of Don Quixote rescued from oblivion

6th July 202230th July 2022 Dilip

So history didn't end after all

Last Man Standing – Fukuyama pines for that old-time liberalism “IN WATCHING THE FLOW of events over the past decade or so, it is hard to avoid the feeling that something fundamental has happened in world history.” These were the seminal opening words of Francis Fukuyama’s article “The End of History?” published in the… Read More So history didn't end after all

3rd July 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Roland Barthes in China; or how to plumb the depths of professorial vacuity…

ROLAND BARTHES IN CHINA (Simon Leys; re-published in his book of essays: The Hall of Uselessness, 2014) Sed perseverare… (To err is human, (but) to persist is diabolical) IN APRIL and May of 1974, Roland Barthes made a trip to China with a small group of his friends from the review Tel Quel. This visit coincided… Read More Roland Barthes in China; or how to plumb the depths of professorial vacuity…

24th June 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Book review: Empires in World History

Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper hold that while “empires” are often seen now as haunting specters of tyranny and oppression, it has not always been so. Instead, they posit that empires have taken many different shapes and have been the most influential form of political rule over the last two millennia. The authors seek not… Read More Book review: Empires in World History

19th June 202230th July 2022 Dilip

'Napalm Girl' at 50: The story of the Vietnam War's defining photo / “Because Our Fathers Lied”: Craig McNamara Reveals the Lies of His Father, Robert McNamara

The horrifying photograph of children fleeing a deadly napalm attack has become a defining image not only of the Vietnam War but the 20th century. Dark smoke billowing behind them, the young subjects’ faces are painted with a mixture of terror, pain and confusion. Soldiers from the South Vietnamese army’s 25th Division follow helplessly behind. Taken… Read More 'Napalm Girl' at 50: The story of the Vietnam War's defining photo / “Because Our Fathers Lied”: Craig McNamara Reveals the Lies of His Father, Robert McNamara

19th June 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Book review: Kabir and the Question of Modernity

NB: An excellent review of an excellent book. Purushottam Agrawal has done us a public service. DS Kabir, the famous religious poet of Varanasi, lived from roughly 1440 CE to 1518 CE. He first became well-known outside of India in 1915 when Rabindranath Tagore published an English translation of 100 songs, or bhajans, attributed to Kabir. Tagore’s translation… Read More Book review: Kabir and the Question of Modernity

13th June 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Book review – Stalin: his own avatar

When the novelist Mikhail Sholokhov, who later won the Nobel Prize for literature, had trouble getting the third part of The Quiet Don approved for publication, he appealed to Maxim Gorky, then the supreme authority in Soviet literary affairs. Gorky invited him to his mansion, which had been a gift from Stalin to lure Gorky… Read More Book review – Stalin: his own avatar

10th June 202230th July 2022 Dilip

Book review: The Corruption of the Best – On Ivan Illich

Over the past two centuries, most critiques of modernity have fallen into one of two camps. The first tends to see the modern age as the spawn of the tragic dissolution of Christian civilization, which had provided stable meaning and order for over a millennium, while the second emphasizes the failures of modernity to fulfill… Read More Book review: The Corruption of the Best – On Ivan Illich

1st June 202230th July 2022 Dilip

After the truth-shower

Philosophy, history, literature, current affairs, and other stuff. Posted by Dilip Simeon

Tag: Books and literature