Emmanuel Levinas (1906-95) placed ethics at the foundation of philosophy; during his life, which spanned almost the entire twentieth century, he witnessed devastating events that could not have been more demanding of that philosophical stance. Unforeseen History covers the years 1929-92, providing a wide overview of Levinas's work - especially his views on aesthetics and Judaism - offering examples of his precise thinking at work in small essays, long essays, and interviews. The earliest essays in Unforeseen History discuss phenomenology, a subject Levinas introduced to a great many French...

July 13, 2014, the storming of the Bastille was "re-enacted" by enraged mobs shouting Death to the Jews. Trampling the protest march tradition, they stomped down boulevard Beaumarchais, fanned out into the Marais, and massed in front of synagogues, armed with baseball bats, iron bars, rocks, and blood-curdling screams of Slaughter the Jews. They clashed with Jews defending the synagogue on rue de la Roquette and fought with the police that finally arrived to restore order. Six days later, the mobs occupied Place de la Republique in defiance of a ban against their demonstration. They climbed...

Nidra Poller Troubled Dawn of the 21st Century authorship intl 360 pages Troubled Dawn of the 21st Century began as a writer's notebook and led to my transition from the art of the novel to a novelist's singular style of journalism. At the end of September 2000 I was mentally constructing my next novel that would expand from the mother-daughter axis of the previous work, Madonna Madonna, to the third generation, from mother to daughter to grandchild. The challenge I had set for myself was abruptly replaced by the existential conflict that has occupied me ever since. The alleged provocation of...