L'Ere Des Tyrannies

On November 28, 1936, in Paris, speaking before the French Philosophical Society, philosopher and historian Elie Halevy revolutionized our understanding of history. Europe had entered the "era of tyrannies." From Rome to Berlin and Moscow, unknown regimes were rising up amidst state terror, armed revolution, and nationalist fanaticism. Through his analysis, which no thinker had previously formulated, Elie Halevy warned democracies of the mortal threat posed by these regimes of absolute power. To define them was to put oneself in the intellectual position to combat them. This unparalleled effort to rethink a fatal history was a philosophical act par excellence, bringing history back toward freedom, ushering in a time of resistance to totalitarianism before the outbreak of the Second World War. On the night of August 20, 1937, Elie Halevy died. A year later, the year of Munich, The Age of Tyranny became a book, by the will of his friends including Raymond Aron, Celestin Bougle, Etienne Mantoux, and his wife Florence. The present edition republishes this major conference of 1936 and the one of 1929 which preceded it, accompanied by unpublished texts and a selection of correspondence. The past and present struggle against tyrannies is illuminated here by a work of great importance.