The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism - Softcover

Bruckner, Pascal; Rendall, Steven

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691154309 ISBN 13: 9780691154305

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2012

Synopsis

Rare Book

About this title

Review:

"With eloquence, relish, and confidence, Pascal Bruckner confronts those whose morbid addiction to self-blame has begun to flirt with the suicidal. It's not necessary to concur with him about what constitutes faith or the lack of it. More useful and surprising (and educational) is to compare his authentic quotations from Fanon with the currently received opinion of that author. This is a book that issues a challenge in every chapter, and in some chapters on every page."--Christopher Hitchens

"With controlled anger, Pascal Bruckner scrutinizes European civilization and unsparingly tells the truth, no matter how congenial: Europe is worth admiring and emulating. Its spirit of critical inquiry has produced a culture of tolerance, liberalism, and learning. Its historical sins of omission and commission are legion, yet its values have allowed us to supersede them. In attacking a republican heresy of guilt without accountability, Bruckner chooses the right target and to great effect. This is a bracing call for the universality of republican ideals."--Oliver Kamm, columnist and editorial writer for The Times (London)

"In telling the West not to die of guilt, Pascal Bruckner has laid himself open to attack from all those who think it should. But this essential book, subtly argued and scholarly though it is, has a simple formulation at its heart that would be enough by itself to convey the power of his case: the West didn't invent slavery, the West invented its abolition. His ability to focus light on propositions like that makes him one of the indispensable philosophers of our time."--Clive James, novelist, poet, and essayist

"Bruckner's writing combines wit, learning, and savage indignation. The result is a brilliant defense of liberalism and a deservedly contemptuous assault on all those intellectuals who have betrayed its best values."--Nick Cohen, author of What's Left?: How the Left Lost Its Way

"Pascal Bruckner might well be the most distinguished essay writer in France today. He is both inordinately talented and prodigiously politically incorrect. No one better unmasks the pieties of the reigning intellectual cant. Whether one agrees or disagrees with him, he does the life of the mind an invaluable service."--Richard Wolin, author of The Wind from the East

"The Tyranny of Guilt is one of the landmark books of our time. With humour, depth, breadth, restraint and great insight Bruckner diagnoses an infuriating era. . . . Pascal Bruckner's short book is one of the most vital published in recent years. If the civilisation which it explains survives then I suspect his book will have played as important a part as any piece of writing could in determining that outcome."---Douglas Murray, Literary Review

"That Bruckner's talents defy classification might help to account for the relatively understated reception of his work on this side of the Atlantic. This situation is likely to change soon: along with The Tyranny of Guilt, Princeton University Press will also publish Perpetual Euphoria. . . . Bruckner is a bold and eloquent and important thinker."---Richard Wolin, New Republic

"[The Tyranny of Guilt] is a work of bracing lucidity and exhilarating perception. . . . Europe needs to rethink its attitude towards its past if it is to build a more inclusive and dynamic future. As this exceptional book so emphatically shows, guilt is a luxury we can no longer afford."---Andrew Anthony, The Observer

"When it comes to the sweaty metabolism of guilt, Bruckner is perhaps the most accomplished anatomist since Nietzsche. (He is also, like Nietzsche, an extraordinary stylist, commanding a sinewy, memorably epigrammatic prose.) . . . Ferociously intelligent, passionately argued, stylistically brilliant."---Roger Kimball, National Review

"As a result of his literary background and immersion in the fiery French essayist tradition, he writes in a sparkling prose, captured well here by his translator, Steven Rendall. The resulting tone is redolent for Anglo-Saxon readers of an earlier era, when social critics like Marx or Nietzsche conveyed their ideas with combative gravitas. Beneath Bruckner's eloquence is a serious message: we remain prisoners of a white guilt whose victim is its supposed beneficiary. . . . [T]his is a stirring and important book."---Eric Kaufmann, Prospect

About the Author:

Pascal Bruckner is the award-winning author of many books of fiction and nonfiction, including the novel Bitter Moon, which was made into a film by Roman Polanski. Bruckner's nonfiction books include Perpetual Euphoria and The Paradox of Love (both Princeton).

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0691154309
• ISBN 13: 9780691154305
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256