Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism [Hardcover]

Bernard-Henri Levy (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 16, 2008

In this unprecedented critique, Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of the world’s leading intellectuals revisits his political roots, scrutinizes the totalitarianisms of the past as well as those on the horizon, and argues powerfully for a new political and moral vision for our times. Are human rights Western or universal? Does anti-Semitism have a future, and, if so, what will it look like? And how is it that progressives themselves–those who in the past defended individual rights and fought fascism–have now become the breeding ground for new kinds of dangerous attitudes: an unthinking loathing of Israel; an obsessive anti-Americanism; an idea of “tolerance” that, in its justification of Islamic fanaticism, for example, could become the “cemetery of democracies”; and an indifference, masked by relativism, to the greatest human tragedies facing the world today? Illuminating these and other questions, Lévy also brings to life his own autobiography, highlighting the thinkers he has known and scrutinized and the ideological battles he has fought over thirty years–revealing their bearing on the present.

Above all, Lévy offers a powerful new vision for progressives everywhere, one based neither on the failed idealisms of the past neither nor on their current misguided, bigoted, and dangerously sentimental attachments but on an absolute commitment to combat evil in all its guises. The “new barbarism” Levy compellingly diagnoses is real and must be confronted. At a time of ideological and political transition in America, Left in Dark Times is a polemical, incendiary articulation of the threats we all face–in many cases without our even being aware of it–and a riveting, cogent stand against those threats. Surprising and sure to be controversial, wise and free of cynicism, it is one of the most important books yet written by one of the crucial voices of our time.

Praise for Bernard-Henri Lévy’s American Vertigo

“An entertaining trip, as much in the tradition of Jack Kerouac as Tocqueville.”
–The New York Times

“Perceptive, pugnacious, passionate [and] exquisitely written.”
–The New York Observer

“It’s difficult to remember when a writer of any nationality so clearly and thoughtfully delineated both the good and bad in America. [Grade:] A.”
–Entertainment Weekly (Editor’s Choice)

“Lévy is a true friend of the American experiment and a comrade in the American struggle against the barbarisms.”
–The New Republic

“Lévy writes brilliantly. American Vertigo is filled with insights and goodwill.”
–The Wall Street Journal

“Provocative . . . [Lévy is] a writer of enormous power and vitality.”
–San Francisco Chronicle

“Vigorous . . . impressive.”
–The Boston Globe

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

France's leading public intellectual voices vestigial allegiance to the Left—while trashing it—in this convoluted manifesto. Philosopher-journalist Lévy (American Vertigo) feels a family loyalty not to a dead programmatic socialism but to images, events and reflexes—drawn from the Dreyfus Affair, the 1968 upheavals and other historical milestones that expressed the French Left's opposition to racism and fascism, its support of egalitarianism and its attitude of all-embracing moral responsibility. Lévy follows this muted tribute with a harsh critique of present-day leftist politics. Flogging everyone from Noam Chomsky to Cindy Sheehan, the author attacks the Left for its antiliberalism and anti-Americanism (a veiled anti-Semitism, he believes) and for being soft on Fascislamism, warning that this progressivism without progress adopts the Right's worst features with its isolationism and resistance to humanitarian interventions in Bosnia and Darfur. Lévy is a more cerebral—and judicious—Christopher Hitchens; despite his grandiosity, arcane allusions and the high rhetoric of his long, coiling sentences, he is a lucid, cogent polemicist. Although the dudgeon he directs at the diminished sins of a marginalized postcommunist Left seems overdone, Lévy's many American fans will relish it. (Sept. 16)
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Review

“[Lévy’s] memories interlace with reflections on his long career of political activism . . . and are studded with passionately held positions on every issue current on the world stage. Whether or not you agree with him . . . you will be convinced of this: Ideas matter to him.”—New York Observer

“Lévy offers as fine a description as you’re likely to find anywhere of what the conventional international left . . . has adopted as its worldview. . . . [His] discussion of contemporary anti-Semitism is sophisticated, detailed and convincing.”—Los Angeles Times

“Continually asking himself as well as others to confront the hard questions, [Lévy] produces a text that . . . readers will find highly absorbing.”—New York Times Book Review

“Moving and inspiring . . . When political leaders commit atrocities, intellectuals remind the world of right and wrong. . . . Bernard-Henri Lévy, perhaps the most prominent intellectual in France today, seeks to revive this tradition of speaking truth to power.”—Boston Globe


From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Random House; Tra edition (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140006435X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064359
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 0.9 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,091,841 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 76 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed October 8, 2008

By Keith A. Comess VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Bernard Henri-Levy has a stellar reputation as a public intellectual in France; there is probably no domestic equivalent. Having read several of his articles, all of which were interesting, well-written and informative, I eagerly anticipated this book. I was greatly disappointed.

First, the book is written in a choppy and affected style. Perhaps in an effort to expand an essay-sized work into a book-length item, many paragraphs consist of single sentences. Worse, the sentence structure is annoying. Like this. And maybe also this. Perhaps this. Too. Get it?

Second, in what I assume must be a dazzling display of erudition, BHL name-drops galore. Just about every major and plenty of minor writers, opinion-makers, philosophers and arcane French intellectuals appear throughout the book. For no clear reason. I think.

Third, the elliptical threads of reasoning make the book hard to follow. I was simply baffled by BHL's continued allegiance to "the Left" after he took such pains to demonstrate it's manifest shortcomings. Of course, this rests on his definition of "the Left". That seems to encompass Enlightenment and secular ideals, empathy, a principled stance on anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, a frank characterization of political Islam; in other words, a gumbo of high-minded postures that are not unique to any particular political tendency. At least as far as I can tell. I suppose.

Fourth, his pivot point is the May, 1968 French demonstrations. Exactly why this should serve as the defining occurrence in relatively recent French Leftist tendencies was not made apparent. It seems, in some manner, to feature anti-authoritarian elements. But. Who knows?

Finally, the book has a distinctly parochial tendency. The opening segment on why BHL could not possibly vote for Sarkozy was fine, but not especially germane to the non-French citizen. I guess.

On the other hand, BHL does make some outstanding points and occasionally states them quite lucidly, for example his characterization of the general "world view" of The Left: "We are in a world in which, on the one hand, we have the United States, its English poodle, its Israeli lackey -- a three-headed gorgon that commits all the sins in the world -- and, on the other side, all those who, no matter what their crimes, their ideology, their treatment of their own minorities, their internal policies, their anti-Semitism and their racism, their disdain for women and homosexuals, their lack of press freedom and of any freedom whatsoever, are challenging the former."

In conclusion, this was not the profound indictment of the politically correct, intellectually befuddled, ideologically-driven and distracted Left that I had expected from the book's subtitle: "A Stand Against the New Barbarism". While it serves as a reminder of the very long catalogue of Leftist mistakes (ranging from "fellow-traveler" support of Uncle Joe Stalin to subsequent support of the USSR/Gulag State to impassioned identification with The Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao), it fails in it's presumed purpose.

46 of 55 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The book a great read September 21, 2008

By Edward Green

Format:Hardcover

I bought it the other night when BHL debated Zizek (and won, hands down!) and read it in two nights. But I'll have to think about for weeks.
It's hard to imagine a reader so closed-minded and parochical that he or she would not be totally fascinated by the opening scenes of this book: presidential candidates wooing a philosopher, the philosopher forced to question his deepest convictions and take a stand, the unease at seeing his own political allies follow their worst not their best instincts. The drama is there even if you don't know a Sarkozy from a Chirac--but of course we all do know a Sarkozy from a Chirac!
After the initial drama, the two-thirds of the book devoted to the traps that liberal-progressive politics has laid for itself in the current "dark times" of dictatorships, Islamist fanaticism, ethnic cleansing and genocides, etc., is really provocative. There is so much to argue with here, for AND against. It's making me rethink what we all mean when we glibly call the U.S. an Empire. Is that a genuine analysis or just a slogan that gives people an alibi for ignoring anything they can't blame on America--like Darfur--or for sympathizing with a rightist-disguised-as-a-leftist like Chavez just because he is anti-American?
BHL makes a very troubling argument that if a new anti-Semitism takes hold in the world it will be under the banner of progressive ideology not reactionary ideology. Very scary. Really worth thinking about. He's a leftist quite unlike anything we are seeing in today's political debates and blogosphere.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant analysis of the sins of the Left October 31, 2008

By Shalom Freedman HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Like many of those on the sane Left Bernard Henri- Levy has become disturbed with the strange alliance of the Left with the neo- Fascists, the xenophobic, the American bashers, the Anti- Semites, the preachers of Radical Islam. The Left's abandonment of traditional values and allies is considered here by a writer who has shown not simply integrity in thought, but courage in action. Henri- Levy is one of the few well- known thinkers living today who is also a journalist in the best sense of the world, one who goes and covers the territory. He does this when its the friendly territory of the United States , and also when its the potentially hostile territory of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is here I think especially lucid in analyzing the Left's Anti- Semitism which expresses itself as showing repulusion towards the one democratic state in the Middle East, Israel and currying favor with Radical Islam.
As a person of the Left Henri- Levy particularly feels distressed at being abandoned by those who are his true intellectual home. But he makes an effort here to point out the way to a new sane Left, one as much concerned with Equality and Social Justice as he himself is.