Freedom's moment

What kind of freedom, and what kind of individual, has the French Revolutionary tradition sought to propagate? Paul Cohen finds a distinctly French articulation of freedom in the texts and lives of eight renowned cultural critics who lived between the eighteenth century and the present day: Rousseau, Robespierre, Stendhal, Michelet, Bergson, Peguy, Sartre, and Foucault. Arranged not chronologically but according to the narrative themes and structures the protagonists held in common, Cohen's study discerns a single master narrative of liberty in modern France. Cohen captures these radicals as they denounce bourgeois and utilitarian values, the power of Church and State, and the corrupting influence of everyday politics. An eloquent and insightful work on French political culture, Freedom's Moment also helps explain how France, even as it has oscillated between political stagnation and crisis, has held onto its faith that liberty, equality, and fraternity remain within its grasp.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Philosophy. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.