The Wind from the East

Reviews / Votes

A National Public Radio (npr.org/blogs) John Wilson Favorite Book of the Year in Books & Culture for 2010 One of Financial Times's Best Books in History for 2012 "The Wind From the East must be regarded as a monument of committed scholarship. It is also a fascinating chronicle of people who, however ludicrous they may seem at times, did on occasion think and act with profound seriousness. For that reason the book is a valuable addition to the literature of the era."--David Gress, Wall Street Journal "Wolin surveys a wide range of French intellectuals' responses to Mao's China. The best of these responses creatively appropriate the concept of cultural revolution, leading to a new libertarianism and to the embrace of causes such as gay rights, women's liberation, and prison reform; the worst of them became fatally compromised by a blind endorsement of the crimes of Chinese communism... Wolin skewers irresponsible intellectual posturing in a manner reminiscent of the late Tony Judt, but reveals an underlying sympathy with the goals and ideals, if not always with the choices, of the Gauchistes. A masterful performance."--Choice "Even as he is documenting the delusions of the sixty-eighters--often with considerable wit, and with a seemingly encyclopedic familiarity--Wolin grants credence to their skewed perception of the status quo in France and in the West more generally. Disagreements and exasperations aside, I found this book compulsively readable. The history of Sixties is a long way from being exhausted."--John Wilson, Books & Culture "[A] fascinating and dispassionate account of one of the more curious follies of recent times."--Jeremy Jennings, Standpoint "Wolin argues that fascination with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution reflected, not simply a taste for exoticism, but a delayed response to postwar capitalist modernisation."--Scott McLemee, The National "Richard Wolin has provided us with an informative and readable account of a fascinating episode in twentieth-century French intellectual history, knowledgeably placing it into its wider biographical and political contexts."--Moritz Follmer, French History "The Wind from the East tells the story of the '68 generation with a much needed awareness of the complexities of its intellectual odyssey. It is, in the end, a meditation of considerable depth on the formation of political judgments. As such, it is an important book, both within the field of French history and beyond."--Michael C. Behrent, H-France Review "The Wind from the East will be a rewarding and exciting reading for all those with an interest in French studies, politics, and intellectual history."--Viola Brisolin, European Legacy