As Citizens Of A Free Society, We

I Started Work On My First French History Book In 1969; On 'socialism In Provence' In 1974; And On The Essays In Marxism And The French Left In 1978. Conversely, My First Non-academic Publication, A Review In The 'tls', Did Not Come Until The Late 1980s, And It Was Not Until 1993 That I Published My First Piece In The 'new York Review.'

I Worry That We Have Forgotten That The De-ideologized, De-politicized, Uncontentious Public Space Of The Last 50 Years As Europeans Have Experienced It Is Not The Normal Human Condition. We Shall Be Sorry To Have Abandoned A Little Too Quickly The Institutions That Were Set Up By Our Parents And Grandparents To Protect Themselves Against A Return Of The Bad Old World. Because The Bad Old World Can Still Come Back To Haunt You.

History Can Show You That It Was One Pile Of Bad Stuff After Another. It Can Also Show You That There's Been Tremendous Progress In Knowledge, Behaviour, Laws, Civilisation. It Cannot Show You That There Was A Meaning Behind It.

If Words Fall Into Disrepair, What Will Substitute? They Are All We Have

I Do Think We're On The Edge Of A Terrifying World, And That Many Young People Know That But Don't Know How To Talk About It.