The Young Derrida and French Philosophy 1945-1968

In this powerful new study Edward Baring sheds fresh light on Jacques Derrida one of the most influential yet controversial intellectuals of the twentieth century. Reading Derrida from a historical perspective and drawing on new archival sources The Young Derrida and French Philosophy shows how Derrida''s thought arose in the closely contested space of post-war French intellectual life developing in response to Sartrian existentialism religious philosophy and the structuralism that found its base at the cole Normale Suprieure. In a history of the philosophical movements and academic institutions of post-war France Baring paints a portrait of a community caught between humanism and anti-humanism providing a radically new interpretation of the genesis of deconstruction and of one of the most vibrant intellectual moments of modern times.