This book was originally published in 1927 and was basically ignored.Did 100,000,000 people die because the twin monstrosities of Communism and Fascism were given an intellectual face by the Heidegger's,Sartre's,Pound's,Russell's,Shaw's,Marcuse's and other pernicious lackeys who abdicated their supposed duty to reason and objectivity?Maybe.Maybe not.What is clear is that utopian nonsense,raw power,obvious lies and distortions were ignored by the luminaries of the age,and an intentional not seeing the evil elements of these movements were practiced religiously.It appears that only Orwell,Benda and a few lesser lights called out the age for the sickness and tyranny epidemic to it.The legion of the dead cannot be brought back,but we can hold the bootlickers to the scorn they so richly deserve and use them as an example of how even the brightest can be blind,stupid politically(even Einstein was a Socialist)and not to be accorded authority just because they have degrees and are hailed as Wisemen.Benda was one of the few men to keep the principles of objectivity and detachment from the political arena while holding out for democracy and sanity in an insane age that actively sought to destroy democracy and the ideals and institutions that makes a free world possible.Though the madness of the era had its say, future generations should keep Benda as a shining light when the next fit of crazyness rears its ugly,inevitable head.

This prescient warning of what was to come as the intellectuals abandoned their disinterested critique for service to power bears rereading. Only John Ralston Saul in the Unconscious Civilization and Voltaire's Bastards currently makes the case for enlightened values with the fervour of Benda's wistfull invocation of Christ and Socrates.

This book should have served as a wake-up call when it first appeared in the twenties. The issue it addresses is as pertinent today as it was then: Intellectuals who abandon their calling to guide and instruct the masses according to the principles of the siecle de lumiere to become apologists for nationalist, irrationalist thoughts and deeds. Everybody who is active in shaping public discourse (politician, writers, especially professors) should head this book's warning and think twice before abdicating his or her responsibility towards society.

This is the only one book that can give a complete tour in the mainstream culture of the imagination and its relationship with the power. Even if you hadn't read the theories of Benda, you can enjoy the reading of this one, because is a resume of the position between the power and the intelectuals.