We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,576,102.14 | Books Available: 794,554 | Members Online: 56

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Century

Century
Author: Alain Badiou

The twentieth century has been judged and condemned as the century of totalitarian terror, of utopian and dangerous ideologies, of empty illusions and mass genocides. In this major new book, the leading French philosopher Alain Badiou undertakes to re-examine this century - not from the customary moral standpoint of a wise judge looking back, bu... more »t rather through an immanent investigation of the century itself in its unfolding.In order to do this, he considers poems, philosophical fragments, political programmes, theatre pieces - a whole body of material in which the nature of the century is uncovered. Against the grain of all other judgements hitherto pronounced, Badiou argues that the passion of the twentieth century was not at all the passions for utopia or ideologies, even less was it messianic passion. The terrible passion of the twentieth century - in contrast to the prophetic character of the nineteenth century - was the passion for the real. It was a question of activating the True, here and now.Everywhere, the twentieth century has been judged and condemned as the century of totalitarian terror, of utopian and criminal ideologies, of empty illusions, of genocides, of false avant-gardes, of democratic realism everywhere replaced by abstraction. It is not this book's wish to plead for an accused that is perfectly capable of defending itself without the author's help. Nor does it seek to proclaim, like Frantz, the hero of Sartre's Prisoners of Altona: 'I have taken the century on my shoulders and I have said: I will answer for it!' The Century simply aims to examine what this accursed century, from within its own unfolding, said that it was. Alain Badiou's proposal is to reopen the dossier on the century - not from the angle of those wise and sated judges that too often we claim to be, but from the standpoint of the century itself. In order to do this, The Century makes use of poems (Mandelstam, Pessoa), philosophical fragments (Sartre, Foucault), political visions (Mao), theatre pieces (Brecht, Pirandello)... This is the material through which the century declares, in thought, its life, its drama, its creations, its passion. Against the grain of all the judgments hitherto pronounced on the century, Badiou argues that this passion was not at all the passion for the imaginary or the passion for ideologies. Even less was it a messianic passion. The terrible passion of the twentieth century was - in contradistinction to the prophetic character of the nineteenth century - the passion for the real. It was a question of activating the True, here and now. This translation features a commentary and notes by Alberto Toscano.

ISBN-13: 9780745636320
ISBN-10: 0745636322
Publication Date: 4/1/2007
Pages: 200
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Polity Press
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

History >> World >> 20th Century
Literature & Fiction >> Foreign Language Fiction >> French
Nonfiction >> Philosophy >> General
Nonfiction >> Philosophy >> Modern
Nonfiction >> Foreign Language Nonfiction >> French

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Century

Loading...