Natalie Doyle is deputy director of Monash University’s European and EU Centre.

Natalie Doyle’s study offers a provocative account of what she diagnoses as a “loss of common purpose” in contemporary French political debates by reconstructing the critical itinerary of Marcel Gauchet, a former gauchiste leader at a provincial French university in May 1968, whose encounter with a professor, Claude Lefort, led him to join also with Cornelius Castoriadis to transform the critique of totalitarianism into a positive theory of radical democracy. Now the editor of the monthly journal, Le Débat, an established historian and regular political commentator, Gauchet has—for good or for ill—recast the French intellectual stage. How did the former leftist-anarchist become an authority whose writings are taken seriously by all corners of the political spectrum? Natalie Doyle’s searching study presents a comprehensive analysis of Gauchet’s intellectual itinerary whose suggestive conclusions about the contemporary crisis of European democracy open new horizons.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1: French Post-Marxist Theory and Gauchet’s Model of CritiqueChapter 2: French Post-Marxist Theory and the Political: Gauchet and ReligionChapter 3: Gauchet and the Genesis of Modern SocietyChapter 4: The Legacy of French Sociology and Anthropology: Gauchet and the Question of the Post-SecularChapter 5: The Crisis of European Democracy: The Neo-Liberal Ideology and Political RadicalizationConclusionBibliographyAbout the Author

Natalie Doyle is deputy director of Monash University’s European and EU Centre.

Natalie Doyle’s study offers a provocative account of what she diagnoses as a “loss of common purpose” in contemporary French political debates by reconstructing the critical itinerary of Marcel Gauchet, a former gauchiste leader at a provincial French university in May 1968, whose encounter with a professor, Claude Lefort, led him to join also with Cornelius Castoriadis to transform the critique of totalitarianism into a positive theory of radical democracy. Now the editor of the monthly journal, Le Débat, an established historian and regular political commentator, Gauchet has—for good or for ill—recast the French intellectual stage. How did the former leftist-anarchist become an authority whose writings are taken seriously by all corners of the political spectrum? Natalie Doyle’s searching study presents a comprehensive analysis of Gauchet’s intellectual itinerary whose suggestive conclusions about the contemporary crisis of European democracy open new horizons.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1: French Post-Marxist Theory and Gauchet’s Model of CritiqueChapter 2: French Post-Marxist Theory and the Political: Gauchet and ReligionChapter 3: Gauchet and the Genesis of Modern SocietyChapter 4: The Legacy of French Sociology and Anthropology: Gauchet and the Question of the Post-SecularChapter 5: The Crisis of European Democracy: The Neo-Liberal Ideology and Political RadicalizationConclusionBibliographyAbout the Author

Natalie Doyle is deputy director of Monash University’s European and EU Centre.

Natalie Doyle’s study offers a provocative account of what she diagnoses as a “loss of common purpose” in contemporary French political debates by reconstructing the critical itinerary of Marcel Gauchet, a former gauchiste leader at a provincial French university in May 1968, whose encounter with a professor, Claude Lefort, led him to join also with Cornelius Castoriadis to transform the critique of totalitarianism into a positive theory of radical democracy. Now the editor of the monthly journal, Le Débat, an established historian and regular political commentator, Gauchet has—for good or for ill—recast the French intellectual stage. How did the former leftist-anarchist become an authority whose writings are taken seriously by all corners of the political spectrum? Natalie Doyle’s searching study presents a comprehensive analysis of Gauchet’s intellectual itinerary whose suggestive conclusions about the contemporary crisis of European democracy open new horizons.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1: French Post-Marxist Theory and Gauchet’s Model of CritiqueChapter 2: French Post-Marxist Theory and the Political: Gauchet and ReligionChapter 3: Gauchet and the Genesis of Modern SocietyChapter 4: The Legacy of French Sociology and Anthropology: Gauchet and the Question of the Post-SecularChapter 5: The Crisis of European Democracy: The Neo-Liberal Ideology and Political RadicalizationConclusionBibliographyAbout the Author