Jouvenel, Bertrand De (1903–1987)

Bertrand de Jouvenel was a prominent French political philosopher, social scientist, and essayist whose writings [Page 264]covered a wide range of political and social thought. Born into a cultivated milieu—his father, Henri, was a distinguished French politician, diplomat, and journalist, and his mother, Sarah Boas, ran a celebrated salon—the young Jouvenel experienced the intellectual dislocations characteristic of the generation that came of age after the First World War. A famous journalist, he traveled widely and interviewed many of the principal actors on the world stage, including David Lloyd George, Churchill, and Hitler. In the 1920s and early 1930s, he tirelessly worked to promote Franco-German reconciliation. At the time, he identified with moderate socialist political currents. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, he became increasingly ...