Probing the effect of the Vietnam War on the American self-image, the author uses popular culture, literature, and film to study how the myths and symbols of the war reflected the politics of Americans.

In The Knight-Monks of Vichy France John Hellman describes the founding, operation, transformation, and demise of the school, details the institution's ideological and political struggles with other segments of French society, and deals with the remarkable rise of Uriage ideas and alumni in postwar France. By focusing on the social, philosophical, and psychological concepts propounded by the staff of the school, Hellman has produced the first study that shows the Ecole Nationale des Cadres d'Uriage to have been an original educational and group experience which inspired French youth from very...

Albert Camus called her "the only great spirit of our time." She was one of the most prominent French political thinkers of this century. She was a brilliant social activist, a vigilant and critical Marxist. Her religious and philosophical writings are remarkable in their originality. And yet Simone Weil died without ever writing a complete book and without ever formulating a major intellectual testament.
In this study of her life and thought, John Hellman synthesizes insights drawn from her varied, fragmentary writings-notebooks, essays, and letters-into a single, highly original view of the...