The Cult of Violence: Sorel and the Sorelians

BRAND NEW FIRST EDITION First Printing hardcover, clean text, solid binding, NO remainders NOT ex-library slight shelfwear / storage-wear; jacket lacking WE SHIP FAST. Carefully packed and quickly sent. 201512395 Written in 1980, this is an excellent, detailed book (359 pages with index) on the philosophies of Georges Sorel. It is perhaps misleadingly titled since the advocacy of violence is only the most striking component of Sorel's writing and only one of several key recurrent themes. The book is organized thematically but also in a roughly chronological manner. This is possible because certain political/ideological movements and concepts predominated different stages of Sorel's life: Revolutionary Syndicalism, Integral Nationalism, Bolshevism, and Fascism. Each of these sections is further divided into 3 parts: The Man, The Idea, and The Impact. The last section of the book, Sorelians after Sorel, is divided chronologically into the 1920's (Sorel died in 1922) the 1930's, and The War Years and Conclusion. Why study Sorel when he seems not only wrongheaded, indeed even perverse, but also irrelevant? His erudition and profound sense of inspiration are worth witnessing. Above all, it is fascinating to see how this strange thinker inspired others and, as we say today, was always thinking outside the box. In fact, he worked as an architect of ideas, combining seemingly incompatible boxes to create new structures of thought and hence new perspectives. To study Sorel is to never take for granted again the traditional alignment or clustering of ideas. Roth pulls these disparate ideas together in a coherent way and shows how they changed, how Sorel was moved by historic events and their underlying emotional and "spiritual" significance. We recommend selecting Priority Mail wherever available. (No shipping to Mexico, Brazil or Italy.)