Generating great controversy on its publication in France, this book argues that a counter-revolution in intellectual life has seen the period of the master thinkers of the 1960s succeeded by an era of generalized mediocrity. Where Althusser or Lacan, Foucault or Derrida once held centre stage, today restorationist currents prevail in academia and on television. The author discusses how, fuelled by a complaisant media, contemporary French ideology seeks neither to interpret nor change the world, but is instead content to legitimize a globally hegemonic neo-liberalism.