Daniel Bensaïd: Paris '68, 'When history breathed down our necks' -- excerpt from 'An Impatient Life: A Memoir'

March 1, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – Below is an excerpt from the late Daniel Bensaïd's memoir, An Impatient Life, just published by Verso. It is posted with the kind permission of Verso. Readers of Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal are urged to order a copy HERE. You can download the excerpt HERE (PDF), or read it on screen below.

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An Impatient Life: A Memoir
by Daniel Bensaïd, translated by David Fernbach, with an introduction by Tariq Ali,
Verso Books, 2014. 336 pp.

In the classic tradition of the philosopher-activist, Daniel Bensaïd tells the story of a life deeply entwined with the history of both the French and the international left. From his family bistro in a staunchly red neighbourhood of Toulouse to the founding of the Jeunesses communistes revolutionnaires in the 1960s, from the joyous explosion of May 1968 to the painful experience of defeat in Latin America, from the re-reading of Marx to the “Marrano” trail, Bensaïd relates a life of ideological and practical struggle in which he unflinchingly sought to understand capitalism without ever succumbing to its temptations.

Daniel Bensaïd: Paris '68, "When history breathed down our necks"