Sartre's War

SYMPOSION, 2004

The scene is epic: with the help from American soldiers and to the cheering of Iraqis the statue of Saddam Hussein falls to the ground before the eyes of the world. It was here, at this very moment and in this mise en scène, that the Iraqis were supposed to come out of the cold and into the world of peace and freedom.We know now that the enthusiasm was, to say the least, premature. But there is also a more profound problematic at stake here: Is there ever a given moment in time when a certain historical event has come to a final close and attained its full glory? A moment, that is, when the time is ripe for the last judgement of the event's definitive value for humanity as such? In Sartre's war this problematic is explored through a close reading of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. The book shows us how Sartre's thinking - with its movement from existential phenomenology to marxism - is shaped in a time where some of our most profound ideological conflicts and blood-stained clashes took place. 

"Ingenious." Aftonbladet(Maja Lundgren)

"In his excellent book Azar skillfully exposes all the threads that are woven together in Sartre's philosophy". Göteborgs-posten(Carl Rudbeck)

"One of the best accounts of Sartre's philosophy that I have read. Azar's interpretation is scrupulous and accurate throughout the whole study." Lychnos. Yearbook for the History of Ideas (Professor Hans Herlof Grelland)