Homo Mythicus: Volume II of The Nihilist Order

In the turbulent period between 1870 and 1930, the contours of modernity were taking shape, especially the connections between technology, politics, and aesthetics. The trilogy The Nihilist Order traces the genealogy of the nihilist-totalitarian syndrome. Georges Sorel (1847-1922) was the first political philosopher to develop a systematic theory of political myth: one that had profound impact on radical leaders and totalitarian movements of the 20th century. While he was a highly respected by early political sociologist, his writings transcended disciplinary boundaries in their creation of a modern political mythology. Believing that ideology was too abstract, general, and ineffective to be instrumental in the political mobilization of the masses, Sorel formulated the myth of the general strike. According to his theory of social psychology, people are socialized not by means of ideology, but through a common experience of action. This idea was adopted to great effect in the following years by revolutionary syndicalism, fascism, and bolshevism. Sorel's problem was one that is well understood by the social thinkers of today: that of revitalizing a political arena and a social structure which he felt to be dominated by an inauthentic degenerate search for a tranquil bourgeois existence. The myth of violence, he believed, would reinvigorate the militancy of both socialism and nationalism and spur these on to a new and dynamic course of action. Sorelian myth should be understood in a new way, not as a means to some ideological purpose, but to a mobilization of heroic action, seen as an end in itself. This is the focus of Homo Mythicus: Volume II of The Nihilist Order.

Table of Contents:
Preface; Georges Sorel & the Rise of Political Myth; The Role of Myth in History; The Origins of Sorelian Thought; The Birth of Civilisation Out of Myth; The Illusions of Harmony; Marxism in Nietzschean Dress; Violence & Force, Myth & Utopia; The Dreyfus Revolution; The Sorelian Order; Mythology Reconstructed; Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch & the Fascist Myth; Ernst Cassirer & the Rise of "Myth-Leader"; Camus, Sartre, Arendt & the Myth of Violence; Marshall McLuhan, Technology & Myth; The "Anti-Intellectual" Intellectuals as Political Mythmakers; Index.

About the Author :
Professor David Ohana teaches European history at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. He was a visiting fellow at The Sorbonne, Harvard, and Berkeley as well as the first academic director of the Forum for Mediterranean Cultures at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. His many books include: The Origins of Israeli Mythology (Cambridge, 2014), Israel and Its Mediterranean Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), Modernism and Zionism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), Political Theologies in the Holy Land: Israeli Messianism and its Critics (Routledge, 2009), and most recently, The Nihilist Order: The Intellectual Roots of Totalitarianism (SAP 2016).

Review :
"Ohana has convincingly shown that a complex cultural, ideological and psychological syndrome, linking nihilism to totalitarianism, represented a significant factor in the 'gathering storm' which marked the early twentieth century." --Saul Friedländer, author, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 "A major contribution to the understanding of the 'condition humain'." --Yehoshua Arieli, author, Individualism and Nationalism in American Ideology "A provocative and illuminating thesis on Totalitarianism." --Isaiah Berlin "A turning point in the research of European modernity." --Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "Ohana begins by exploring the political and mythical theory of Georges Sorel (1847-1922) as a pioneering theoretician of myth who shaped the radical path of political and syndicalist currents in France and Europe. He also attributes to him the theoretical framework, historical analogies, and intellectual support for radical activists and political leaders who sought to move from ideology to myth by stressing belligerent form rather than ideological content, preaching liberating violence, and creating a fighting order. In the second part, he introduces critical theoreticians who recognized the centrality of myth but did not share Sorel's political conclusions, among them Bloch, Cassirer, Sartre, Arendt, and McLuhan." --Reference & Research Book News