Alain Badiou: The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings (2011–)

“Testing the winds of history blowing from the Arab revolts.

In the uprisings of the Arab world, Alain Badiou discerns echoes of the European revolutions of 1848. In both cases, the object was to overthrow despotic regimes maintained by the great powers—regimes designed to impose the will of financial oligarchies. Both events occurred after what was commonly thought to be the end of a revolutionary epoch: in 1815, the final defeat of Napoleon; and in 1989, the fall of the Soviet Union. But the revolutions of 1848 proclaimed for a century and a half the return of revolutionary thought and action. Likewise, the uprisings underway today herald a worldwide resurgence in the liberating force of the masses—despite the attempts of the ‘international community’ to neutralize its power.

Badiou’s book salutes this reawakening of history, weaving examples from the Arab Spring and elsewhere into a global analysis of the return of emancipatory universalism.”

Originally published as Le Reveil de l’histoire, Nouvelles Editions Lignes, 2011

Translated by Gregory Elliott
Publisher Verso Books, 2012
ISBN 1844678792, 9781844678792
126 pages

Reviews: Jasper Bernes and Joshua Clover (Los Angeles Review of Books), Daniel Tutt (Platypus), Anindya Bhattacharyya (Socialist Review).

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2020-7-5)

Émile Zola: Germinal (1885) [FR, EN, DE]

Germinal is the thirteenth novel in Émile Zola’s twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Often considered Zola’s masterpiece and one of the most significant novels in the French tradition, the novel – an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers’ strike in northern France in the 1860s – has been published and translated in over one hundred countries as well as inspiring five film adaptations and two television productions.

The title refers to the name of a month of the French Republican Calendar, a spring month. Germen is a Latin word which means “seed”; the novel describes the hope for a better future that seeds amongst the miners.

commentary (Ruth Scurr, The Guardian, 2010)

wikipedia

PDF (French, published by G. Charpentier, 1885)
PDF (French, published by G. Charpentier, 1900, Vol. 1)
PDF (French, 1900, Vol. 2)
PDF (English, translated by Carlynne, published by Belford, Clarke, Chicago/New York, 1885)
PDF (English, translated by Havelock Ellis, 1894)
PDF (EPUB, German)

The Machinery of Stability Preservation (2011) [Chinese/English]

“There is widespread agreement in China, from high officials to ordinary people, about the importance of maintaining social stability. There is rather less consensus, though, about how best to ensure and promote stability. Considering the costs, both fiscal and human, of continued pursuit of the policy of “stability above all else,” some have begun to question whether, perhaps, the effort might actually be counterproductive.

In a recent article (translated below) posted on the website of Caijing magazine, two reporters who have been covering China’s social stability problem offer an excellent introduction to the organizational structure behind China’s stability management effort. Their detailed portrait of this structure as it exists at both the central and local levels leads into a trenchant analysis of China’s paradoxical pursuit of stability and a look at how that structure actually undermines that effort. Their conclusion—that the only escape from this paradox is to accelerate the pace of political and judicial reform—is a clear articulation of an aspiration that is gathering momentum in China but that will still have to overcome much resistance if it is to be realized.”

by Caijing magazine reporters Xu Kai & Li Weiao, 6 June 2011
Translated by Dui Hua Human Rights Journal, 8 June 2011

View online [Chinese]
View online [English]

related:
Stability Preservation in China (English extracts from three pieces written by Leung Man Tao, a recognized media professional and public intellectual from Hong Kong, Du Guang, a veteran Central Party School scholar, and Sun Liping, a sociology professor at Tsinghua University; 2010)
Riot erupts in southwest China town: reports (Reuters; 12 Aug 2011)