War, Evil, and the End of History

From Publishers Weekly
One of France's most celebrated intellectuals and author of the French bestseller Who Killed Daniel Pearl? reports on five currently forgotten or marginalized war zones-Angola, Sri Lanka, Burundi, Colombia and the Sudan-and elaborates his eyewitness accounts with philosophizing about genocide, terrorism and the nature of history. The first part is philosophical travelogue, richly descriptive and highly visual in style. A lyrical yet disciplined commentator, Lévy teases out the underlying logic and cultural specificity of each site of devastation. Human encounters, such as a meeting with a young female Tamil would-be suicide bomber on the run or an interview with a jittery Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader in Colombia, are full of intelligent observation. The two million dead of Sudan haunt the ghost towns Lévy describes, and he never spares us details of atrocities. Burundi, a scene of total desolation, comes to represent his degree zero of despair. In the book's second part, the author mingles his intellectual autobiography (early Maoist activism, his first war reporting in Bangladesh) with essays on Hegelian definitions of history, the philosophy of ruins, war nostalgia, dehumanization, the laws of war and self-reflexive musings on the role of journalism. In these stylishly fragmented discussions he draws on readings in Nietzsche, Sartre, Bataille, Benjamin, Levinas and Foucault as well as on fiction and film. Mandell's translation preserves a singularly French style of lofty questioning that some readers may find slightly dizzying, even while they glean much from his erudite contemplation of the developing world's most tragic regions. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
Based upon original reporting and theorizing about the world's "forgotten war zones," this book features essays by novelist-philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who is given the kind of adulation in France comparable to pop celebrities in other countries. Included are Levy's reflections on massacres in Burundi and Angola, female suicide bombers in Sri Lanka, and death and destruction in Algeria and Sudan. In the spirit of Émile Zola, Victor Hugo, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir, Lévy analyzes contemporary conflicts from a European perspective. First world-third world relations are shrewdly assessed in these clear-sighted and accessible pieces.

About the Author
Bernard-Henri Lévy is one of France's leading public intellectuals, has been active in French politics, and has often acted as a cultural representative of his country. He is the founder of the New Philosophers group and is the author of 30 books of fiction, philosophy, and political studies, including Barbarism with a Human Face and Who Killed Daniel Pearl?


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One of France's most celebrated intellectuals and author of the French bestseller Who Killed Daniel Pearl? reports on five currently forgotten or marginalized war zones-Angola, Sri Lanka, Burundi, Colombia and the Sudan-and elaborates his eyewitness accounts with philosophizing about genocide, terrorism and the nature of history. The first part is philosophical travelogue, richly descriptive and highly visual in style. A lyrical yet disciplined commentator, Levy teases out the underlying logic and cultural specificity of each site of devastation. Human encounters, such as a meeting with a young female Tamil would-be suicide bomber on the run or an interview with a jittery Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader in Colombia, are full of intelligent observation. The two million dead of Sudan haunt the ghost towns Levy describes, and he never spares us details of atrocities. Burundi, a scene of total desolation, comes to represent his degree zero of despair. In the book's second part, the author mingles his intellectual autobiography (early Maoist activism, his first war reporting in Bangladesh) with essays on Hegelian definitions of history, the philosophy of ruins, war nostalgia, dehumanization, the laws of war and self-reflexive musings on the role of journalism. In these stylishly fragmented discussions he draws on readings in Nietzsche, Sartre, Bataille, Benjamin, Levinas and Foucault as well as on fiction and film. Mandell's translation preserves a singularly French style of lofty questioning that some readers may find slightly dizzying, even while they glean much from his erudite contemplation of the developing world's most tragic regions. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


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