Camille de Toledo
The November 3rd club re-offers an excerpt in response to be finally managing to actually publish Coming of Age at the End of History, after two cover changes, a title and subtitle change, and three re-catalogings. It is a remarkable book, very successful in France and in Germany, and it's immensely frustrating to me I've been unable to give it a proper life in the US. But, at least this time, I actually published it. Here's an excerpt of the except the Nov 3rd crew picked, and the author will be on Michael Silverblatt's Bookworm next week.
The idea that open markets are the only alternative to open war has worked its way into almost every cell and capillary of our daily lives. It streams invisibly through our bodies like a virus, subtly influencing everything we do. Its secret hold on our minds is such that it is hard to believe that any of our thoughts go uncolored by the memory of the war. After all, this is the pretext for the whole deal — today’s economic system is literally built on the rubble of WWII. The horror of the past has been distilled into a concentrated liquor. It runs continually from our pores like a nervous sweat, and sweating guilt for the war’s unspeakable barbarities, our bodies are engulfed by its reeking vapors.
(It is well, if not entirely uncritically, reviewed by Andrew Bast in the Village Voice—it is the rare political book that truly has answers.)