The Double Life of Paul De Man
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.32 (995 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0871403269 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 560 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-04-15 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
. Evelyn Barish is a professor at City University of New York’s Graduate Center and its College of Staten Island, and the author of Emerson:The Roots of Prophecy, for which she won the Christian Gauss Award. She lives in New York City
Alan Zelaya said Double life, indeed. This interesting biography of a 60's cultural hero and self-inventor seems to have caused some hurt feelings. Now, isn't it always better to know the truth?Incidentally, if you check the "other reviews" of all those reviewers who gave this book one star, this seems to be the only book they ever reviewed, in most cases the only item of any kind they ever reviewed. Hmmmm.. Thought-provoking biography of undeservedly respected academic Welsh Corgi fan To say that I liked this biography would not be correct. Its primary attribute for me was that it was thought-provoking, causing me to return (if only briefly) to the academic life of my long-gone youth. Some of these thoughts follow. Even if some of the claims made in the biography are dubious, the biography more than did its job of leading me into critical thought about its subject.First, based on points made in the biography, it occurs to me that someone with a background like de Man's would partic. "A Credible "Background Check" on a Well-Known Scholar" according to R. Moore. There are several good reviews of this book (some of which address both the content of the story and the author's research methods) in the press (including the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the New York Review of Books)--and those interested in this tale of a proven Nazi sympathizer, convicted forgerer, bigamist, liar, and general "operator" and self-promoter, should seek them out. Despite some criticism of some aspects of Barish's historic research and some aspects of her interpretations of som
Relying on years of original archival work and interviews with over two hundred of de Man's circle of friends and family, most of them now dead, Barish vividly re-creates this collaborationist world of occupied Belgian and France.Born in 1919 to a rich but tragically unstable family, Paul de Man, a golden boy, was influenced by his uncle Henri de Man, a socialist turned Nazi collaborator who became the de facto Belgian prime minister. Still in shock, few of his followers wanted to find out. 8 pages of photographs. A landmark biography that reveals the secret past of one of the most influential academics of the twentieth century.
With its posthumous 1988 discovery, an anti-Semitic wartime article by de Man scandalized the academic world. In the indictment Barish proffers, de Man also bent, even flouted, the policies of the prestigious universities where he made his degree. In this stunning biography, Barish exposes a man who devoted his remarkable intelligence and cultural knowledge to constructing a reputation so deviously deceptive that it completely fooled McCarthy and many others. --Bryce Christensen . An astonishing exposé. From Booklist *Starred Review* When Mary McCarthy recommended the young Paul de Man for a position at Bard College in 1949, she characterized him as intelligent, cultivated, modest, and straightforward. Barish probes beyond that article, adducing evidence that de Man served as an executive in Nazi publishing, then exploited his postwar circumstances to embezzle from his own company, violate immigration laws, falsify his academic record, contract a bigam