Philippe Lafargue's Books

The American Enemy

The History of French Anti-Americanism

By: Philippe Roger

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The American Enemy

The History of French Anti-Americanism

By: Philippe Roger

Georges-Louis Buffon, an eighteenth-century French scientist, was the first to promote the widespread idea that nature in the New World was deficient; in America, which he had never visited, dogs don't bark, birds don't sing, and—by extension—humans are weaker, less intelligent, and less potent. Thomas Jefferson, infuriated by these claims, brought a seven-foot-tall carcass of a moose from America to the entry hall of his Parisian hotel, but the five-foot-tall Buffon remained unimpressed and refused to change his views on America's inferiority. Buffon, as Philippe Roger demonstrates here, was just one of the first in a long line of Frenchmen who have built a history of anti-Americanism in that country, a progressive history that is alternately ludicrous and trenchant. The American Enemy is Roger's bestselling and widely acclaimed history of French anti-Americanism, presented here in English translation for the first time. With elegance and good humor, Roger goes back 200 years to unearth the deep roots of this anti-Americanism and trace its changing nature, from the belittling, as Buffon did, of the "savage American" to France's resigned dependency on America for goods and commerce and finally to the fear of America's global domination in light of France's thwarted imperial ambitions. Roger sees French anti-Americanism as barely acquainted with actual fact; rather, anti-Americanism is a cultural pillar for the French, America an idea that the country and its culture have long defined themselves against. Sharon Bowman's fine translation of this magisterial work brings French anti-Americanism into the broad light of day, offering fascinating reading for Americans who care about our image abroad and how it came about. “Mr. Roger almost single-handedly creates a new field of study, tracing the nuances and imagery of anti-Americanism in France over 250 years. He shows that far from being a specific reaction to recent American policies, it has been knit into the very substance of French intellectual and cultural life. . . . His book stuns with its accumulated detail and analysis.”—Edward Rothstein, New York Times “A brilliant and exhaustive guide to the history of French Ameriphobia.”—Simon Schama, New Yorker

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

537

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226723690

ISBN 13

9780226723693

Auguste Blanqui and the Politics of Popular Empowerment

By: Philippe Le Goff

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Auguste Blanqui and the Politics of Popular Empowerment

By: Philippe Le Goff

Few individuals made such an impact on nineteenth-century French politics as Louis-Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881). Political organiser, leader, propagandist and prisoner, Blanqui was arguably the foremost proponent of popular power to emerge after the French Revolution. Practical engagement in all the major uprisings that spanned the course of his life – 1830, 1848, 1870-71 – was accompanied by theoretical reflections on a broad range of issues, from free will and fatalism to public education and individual development. Since his death, however, Blanqui has not been simply overlooked or neglected; his name has widely become synonymous with theoretical misconception and practical misadventure. Auguste Blanqui and the Politics of Popular Empowerment offers a major re-evaluation of one the most controversial figures in the history of revolutionary politics. The book draws extensively on Blanqui's manuscripts and published works, as well as writings only recently translated into English for the first time. Through a detailed reconstruction and critical analysis of Blanqui's political thought, it challenges the prevailing image of an unthinking insurrectionist and rediscovers a forceful and compelling theory of collective political action and radical social change. It suggests that some of Blanqui's fundamental assumptions – from the insistence on the primacy of subjective determination to the rejection of historical necessity – are still relevant to politics today.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

273

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1350076813

ISBN 13

9781350076815

Stereo: Comparative Perspectives on the Sociological Study of Popular Music in France and Britain

By: Philippe Le Guern

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Stereo: Comparative Perspectives on the Sociological Study of Popular Music in France and Britain

By: Philippe Le Guern

The term 'Popular Music' has traditionally denoted different things in France and Britain. In France, the very concept of 'popular' music has been fiercely debated and contested, whereas in Britain and more largely throughout what the French describe as the 'Anglo-saxon' world 'popular music' has been more readily accepted as a description of what people do as leisure or consume as part of the music industry, and as something that academics are legitimately entitled to study. French researchers have for some decades been keenly interested in reading British and American studies of popular culture and popular music and have often imported key concepts and methodologies into their own work on French music, but apart from the widespread use of elements of 'French theory' in British and American research, the 'Anglo-saxon' world has remained largely ignorant of particular traditions of the study of popular music in France and specific theoretical debates or organizational principles of the making and consuming of French musics. French, British and American research into popular music has thus coexisted - with considerable cross-fertilization - for many years, but the barriers of language and different academic traditions have made it hard for French and anglophone researchers to fully appreciate the ways in which popular music has developed in their respective countries and the perspectives on its study adopted by their colleagues. This volume provides a comparative and contrastive perspective on popular music and its study in France and the UK.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

325

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1317050010

ISBN 13

9781317050018

The Case for Work

By: Jean-Philippe Deranty

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Case for Work

By: Jean-Philippe Deranty

The modern work ethic is in crisis. The numerous harms and injustices harboured by current labour markets and work organisations, combined with the threat of mass unemployment entailed in rampant automation, have inspired a strong “post-work” movement in the theoretical humanities and social sciences, echoed by many intellectuals, journalists, artists and progressives. Against this widespread temptation to declare work obsolete, The Case for Work shows that our paltry situation is critical precisely because work matters. It is a mistake to advocate a society beyond work on the basis of its current organisation. In the first part of the book, the arguments feeding into the “case against work” are located in the long history of social and political thought. This comprehensive, genealogical inquiry highlights many conceptual and methodological issues that continue to plague contemporary accounts. The second part of the book makes the “case for work” in a positive way through a dialectical argument. The very feature of work that its critics emphasise, namely that it is a realm of necessity, is precisely what makes it the conduit for freedom and flourishing, provided each member of society is in a position to face this necessity in conditions that are equal and just.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

433

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0192887165

ISBN 13

9780192887160

Work Inequality Basic Income

By: Brishen Rogers,Philippe Van Parjis,Dorian Warren,Tommie Shelby,Diane Coyle

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Work Inequality Basic Income

By: Brishen Rogers,Philippe Van Parjis,Dorian Warren,Tommie Shelby,Diane Coyle

Technology and the loss of manufacturing jobs have many worried about future mass unemployment. It is in this context that basic income, a government cash grant given unconditionally to all, has gained support from a surprising range of advocates, from Silicon Valley to labor. Our contributors explore basic income's merits, not only as a salve for financial precarity, but as a path toward racial justice and equality. Others, more skeptical, see danger in a basic income designed without attention to workers' power and the quality of work. Together they offer a nuanced debate about what it will take to tackle inequality and what kind of future we should aim to create.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

145

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1946511358

ISBN 13

9781946511355

The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900–68)

‘Neither Lenin nor Trotsky nor Stalin!’ - ‘All Workers Must Think for Themselves!’

By: Philippe Bourrinet

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900–68)

‘Neither Lenin nor Trotsky nor Stalin!’ - ‘All Workers Must Think for Themselves!’

By: Philippe Bourrinet

The Dutch-German Communist Left, represented by the German KAPD-AAUD, the Dutch KAPN and the Bulgarian Communist Workers Party, separated from the Comintern (1921) on questions like electoralism, trade-unionism, united fronts, the one-party state and anti-proletarian violence. It attracted the ire of Lenin, who wrote his Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder against the Linkskommunismus, while Herman Gorter wrote a famous response in his pamphlet Reply to Lenin. The present volume provides the most substantial history to date of this tendency in the twentieth-century Communist movement. It covers how the Communist left, with the KAPD-AAU, denounced 'party communism' and 'state capitalism' in Russia; how the German left survived after 1933 in the shape of the Dutch GIK and Paul Mattick’s councils movement in the USA; and also how the Dutch Communistenbond Spartacus continued to fight after 1942 for the world power of the workers councils, as theorised by Pannekoek in his book Workers’ Councils (1946).

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

701

Publisher

BRILL

Published Date

ISBN 10

900432593X

ISBN 13

9789004325937

Book's by Philippe Lafargue

The American Enemy

The American Enemy

Auguste Blanqui and the Politics of Popular Empowerment

Auguste Blanqui and the Politics of Popular Empowerment

Stereo: Comparative Perspectives on the Sociological Study of Popular Music in France and Britain

Stereo: Comparative Perspectives on the Sociological Study of Popular Music in France and Britain

The Case for Work

The Case for Work

Work Inequality Basic Income

Work Inequality Basic Income

The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900–68)

The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900–68)

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email