From Georges Sorel

The prophet of social decadence, the theorist of violence and advocate of the general strike, the critic who stood Marx on his head, Georges Sorel was one of the foremost writers of this century to write extensively on the great importance of the moral aspects of social movements. His reconstruction of socialist ethics established him as one of the most remarkable critics of Marxist thought, and his writings in many aspects anticipated contemporary interpretations. From Georges Sorel, the first of two volumes of Sorel's work, presents his major contributions to social thought--articles on Marxism, religion, syndicalism, social myths, the philosophy of history and science, as well as a large and newly translated segment of "Reflections on Violence." In his introduction, John Stanley disputes the frequently encountered view of Sorel as a reactionary or extreme rightist, and emphasizes Sorel's attempt to provide Western society with a morality based on labor, struggle, and family life. Contents: Editor's Introduction; The Trial of Socrates: The Greek Oligarchy; The Socialist Future of the Syndicates; The Ethics of Socialism; Critical Essays on Marxism: Necessity and Fatalism in Marxism, Is There a Utopia in Marxism, Polemics for the Interpretation of Marxism; The Illusions of Progress: First Ideologies of Progress; Reflections on Violence: Letter to Daniel Halevy, The Proletarian Strike, The Morality of the Producers; Materials for a Theory of the Proletariat: Introduction, The Organization of Democracy; The Utility of Pragmatism: On the Origin of Truth, A Critique of Creative Evolution; A Sorel Bibliography.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1969.

Georges Sorel’s Study on Vico is a revelatory document of the depths and stakes of French social thought at the end of the 19th century. What brought Sorel to the 18th century Neapolitan theorist of history? Acute awareness of the limitations of Marxist thought in his day, a profound concern with the material underpinnings of language, law, and culture, and the imperative to understand the possibilities of revolutionary change. We find here a different Sorel, one who speaks in surprising ways to the 21st century. The translation is accompanied by an introduction and by a set of notes which situate the text both in Sorel’s overall intellectual trajectory and in the fin de siècle debates from which it emerged.

As his editor John L. Stanley points out, Georges Sorel was "that fascinating polymath." This volume, the third in his selected works in the English language published by Transaction, emphasizes Sorel's extraordinary writings in the philosophy of science, religion, culture, and art. For those who know Sorel only as author of Reflections on Violence, the present volume will come as a forceful reminder of the range and depth of Sorelian efforts to construct a world view. Sorel is throughout concerned with the moral development of human beings. In this sense, his writings on politics are of a piece with his writings on religion, "facticity" of human history and society. Sorel's earliest writings were on religion, and key portions of that period are reflected in selections here. And he went on from there to study the sociology of science, the ways in which science fits into the cultural history of civilization and present day social relationships of industrial society. Stanley provides a profound framework based on two decades of close study and translation of Sorel's texts. He helps to explain how the partial theories of Sorel lead to holistic intellectual consequences, how the psychological method does not foreclose political activism, and how historical limits can be transformed against a background of aesthetics or considerations of taste. He shows that Sorel comes as a close as Manheim and Simmel and Durkheim to the creation of a modern social science--albeit he lacks the overall philosophical theorems of people like Marx and Weber. In Sorel we have a first-class mind at work. And in Stanley, we have a first-class analyst at work. Together, the volume adds up to something special for the political scientist, sociologist, art historian, theologian--in short for those to whom the ideal of a human science endures. John L. Stanley is professor of political science at the University of California at Riverside. He is the author of The Sociology of Virtue: The Political and Social Theories of Georges Sorel. He has written many articles and reviews on the history of European political theory. With his wife, Charlotte Stanley, he has been long engaged in the translation of the works of Georges Sorel.

Radicalism and the Revolt Against Reason is a work that continues to have a steady and large scale impact on political and social theory fifty years since its first appearance. A study of how radical thought modifies its actions and ideologies in a time of unrealized and frustrated expectations, the focus is on Georges Sorel and the Europe of the fin de siècle, a time when socialist revolution was forcefully set aside by liberal reform. In a technique that presaged contemporary period, radical demands did not simply dissolve or disappear, they profoundly changed emphasis from the impersonal forces of history to highly personal forces of individual will. This edition includes a substantial brand new introduction by the author.

This volume is a comparative study of the political thought of three writers who, between 1885 and 1914, were leaders in the counterrevolutionary movement in France. Maurice Barres was a nationalistic conservative; Charles Maurras, a classic reactionary; and Georges Sorel, a moralist and syndicalist. Different though the three men were in their conception of political order, they were in common opposed to liberal democracy as a system of government and to most of the ideology and institutions of the Third Republic. Because of their impact on the generation that guided France before World War I, and because many of their attitudes foreshadow later totalitarian programs, Sorel, Barres and Maurras have a significant place in any assessment of modern European political history. Originally published in 1959. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.