Julien Benda's classic study of 1920s Europe resonates today. The "treason of the intellectuals" is a phrase that evokes much but is inherently ambiguous.
From the time of the pre-Socratics, intellectuals, in their role as intellectuals, had been a breed apart. This book tells how in the early decades of the twentieth century, intellectuals abandoned their attachment to the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. It is of interest to those who teach and preach the human sciences.
