Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism

'Historical materialism is the theory of the proletarian revolution.' Georg Lukács

Monday, November 20, 2006

Daniel Guerin

I have just noticed this website tribute to Daniel Guerin (1904-1988), a brilliant French libertarian socialist thinker and revolutionary historian (see his La lutte de classes sous la première République : Bourgeois et 'bras nus' (1793-1797)) (1946). For a short article on his life by David Berry see here - thankfully for people like me the site is in English as well as French...

Edited to add: On the subject of the French Revolution, check out Mark Steel's review of the new film Marie Antoinette:

Not once does this film show life outside the royal court. Because who wants to know about loser peasants and slaves who are, like, nobodies. You get an idea of the approach from an interview with Kirsten Dunst, who played the queen of France, in which she said of her character, "All she really wanted to do was go to Paris and visit the opera and probably be like anybody on the street." Because that was what life was like for anybody on the street at the time--opera, opera, opera. Maybe, when she was told the people had no bread, what she actually said was, "Then let them attend The Marriage of Figaro. If they go to the opening night there'll be waiters wandering around with canapes--by the time their carriage arrives they'll be stuffed."

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4 Comments:

At 3:19 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Another interesting work by Guerin was that translated into English as Fascism and Big Business. Other than that be Poulantzis, this may be the best analysis of facism in the Marxist tradition.

 
At 3:20 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oops, I meant `that by Poulantzis' not 'that be Poulantzis'

 
At 3:21 pm, Blogger k. edward warmoth said...

I read Guerin's book "Anarchism" and LOVED it.

I've been meaning to buy "Fascism and Big Business," and thanks to that quick recommendation ^^ I will.

 
At 3:35 pm, Blogger Snowball said...

Cheers for the comments.

Some of Fascism and Big Business is online at Marxists.Org - while there is a discussion of Guerin's Brown Plague by Dave Renton to check out.

Those wanting to understand Guerin's politics should also read Ian Birchall's article 'Daniel Guerin's dialogue with Leninism' in Revolutionary History journal an issue or so back.

 

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