AcknowledgmentsRegarding Camus
1. 1939: From County Mayo to Kabylia
2. 1945: A Moralist on the Barricades
3. 1952: French Tragedies
4. 1956: Silence Follows
Epilogue
Robert Zaretsky is Professor of French History in the Honors College of the University of Houston. He is author of several books, including Nimes at War and Cock and Bull Stories: Folco de Baroncelli and the Invention of the Camargue. Most recently, he is coauthor of The Philosophers' Quarrel: Rousseau, Hume and the Limits of Human Understanding.
"This elegantly written and beautifully paced book will appeal to
many readers. Those already in sympathy with Camus's ideas will
find extra nourishment; his detractors may want to nuance their
criticisms in the light of Zaretsky's contribution, while those who
are not familiar with Camus will have to look hard to find a
clearer and more stimulating introduction to the man and his
perception of the world."—David Drake, Times Literary Supplement,
March 26, 2010
"A striking book. . . . One of the great benefits of examining
Camus's life through a sequence of key encounters is that it
emphasizes the combative, situated nature of his work, and
Zaretsky's choice of key elements is perfect. The chaos of
empirical details that so often overwhelms the biographer or
historian is thereby given an order and intellectual integrity that
may otherwise be dissolved by the corrosiveness of raw facts. These
vignettes enable Zaretsky to bring out Camus's extreme
attentiveness and responsiveness to the warring forces that emerge
in particular locales; Camus expresses himself differently in
accordance with those situational demands. Zaretsky shows how the
diverse forms taken by Camus's work always have a specific ethical
import, and the ways in which they don't say things prove as
significant as their positive assertions."—Justin Clemens, The
Australian, 17 April 2010
"This is Camus the moralist at his most human and humane,
rebellious or silent, struggling to make his choices, courageously
self-critical, and permanently uneasy. The pleasure of reading
Robert Zaretsky's dramatic and often poetic book is heightened by
the scholarly range of comparisons from Thucydides to J. M. Synge.
It shows how challenging and troubling Camus still is: our own
lucidity and attention to others are fundamentally at issue."—Rod
Kedward, author of France and the French: A Modern History
"Camus is a writer of great nuance and sensitivity, and Robert
Zaretsky interprets Camus in a way that is both intellectually
sharp and deeply personal. This is a thoughtful and beautifully
written book, and I highly recommend it."—Jeffrey C. Isaac, James
H. Rudy Professor of Political Science, Indiana University,
Bloomington, author of Arendt, Camus, and Modern Rebellion
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