Jean-François Revel
| Jean-François Revel | |
|---|---|
Revel in 1999
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| Born | Jean-François Ricard 19 January 1924 Marseille, France |
| Died | 30 April 2006 (aged 82) Kremlin-Bicêtre, France |
| Language | French |
| Nationality | French |
| Education |
Lycée du Parc École normale supérieure |
| Spouse | Claude Sarraute Yahne le Toumelin |
| Children | Matthieu Ricard |
Jean-François Revel (born Jean-François Ricard; 19 January 1924 – 30 April 2006) was a French journalist, philosopher, and a member of the Académie française from June 1998 onwards. A socialist in his youth, Revel later became a prominent European proponent of classical liberalism and free market economics.
Revel is best known for his books Without Marx or Jesus: The New American Revolution Has Begun, The Flight from Truth: The Reign of Deceit in the Age of Information and his 2002 book Anti-Americanism, one year after the September 11 attacks of 2001. In the last of these books, Revel criticized anti-Americanism and Europeans who argued that the United States had brought the terrorist attacks upon itself by misguided foreign policies: "Obsessed by their hatred and floundering in illogicality, these dupes forget that the United States, acting in its own self-interest, is also acting in the interest of us Europeans and in the interests of many other countries which are threatened, or have already been subverted and ruined, by terrorism."
In 1975, he delivered the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden, Netherlands, under the title La tentation totalitaire (English: The Totalitarian Temptation).
Revel was born Jean-François Ricard, but later adopted his pseudonym, Revel, as his legal surname. During the German occupation of France in World War II, Revel participated in the French Resistance and later noted that the officious but disgraceful manner of French collaborators influenced his writings.
Revel studied at the Lycée du Parc in Lyon and was accepted at the prestigious École normale supérieure, where he studied philosophy.
Revel began his career as a philosophy professor, and taught in French Algeria, Italy and Mexico before settling in Lille. He stopped teaching in 1963 and embarked on his career as an essayist and writer as well as directing various publications. From 1998 to 2006, he was president of the Institut d'Histoire Sociale. His successor is Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. In 1986, Revel was honored with an honorary doctorate degree for his commitment to individual freedom.
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