The Intellectual Resistance In Europe [Paperback]

Camus, Sartre, and Beauvoir in France. Eich, Richter, and B?ll in Germany. Pavese, Levi, and Silone in Italy. These are among the defenders of human dignity whose lives and work are explored in this widely encompassing work. James D. Wilkinson examines for the first time the cultural impact of the anti-Fascist literary movements in Europe and the search of intellectuals for renewalfor social change through moral endeavorduring World War II and its immediate aftermath.

It was a period of hope, Wilkinson asserts, and not of despair as is so frequently assumed. Out of the shattering experience of war evolved the bracing experience of resistance and a reaffirmation of faith in reason. Wilkinson discovers a spiritual revolution taking place during these years of engagement and views the participants, the engag?s, as heirs of the Enlightenment. Drawing on a wide range of published writing as well as interviews with many intellectuals who were active during the 1940s, Wilkinson explains in the fullest context ever attempted their shared opposition to tyranny during the war and their commitment to individual freedom and social justice afterward.

Wilkinson has written a cultural history for our time. His wise and subtle understanding of the long-range significance of the engages is a reminder that the reassertion of humanist values is as important as political activism by intellectuals.

Wilkinson has illuminated in a subtle and perceptive way a crucial period of European intellectual history.James D. Wilkinsons thought-provoking and richly detailed book tells how the war acted as a catalyst for this group, leading them into an intense period of self-examination.Crisply written and well organized, his book has a swift pace& Wilkinsons summaries inspire confidence, just as his unobtrusive critical comments offer useful benchmarks.This first work promises a brilliant career& Wilkinsons book is tight-knit, well-organized and structured, and couched in rel#®