The Embrace of Unreason

“Brown [is] the leading English-language chronicler of this appalling but fascinating French story.” —New Republic
 
“Brilliant. . . . At once social history, cultural history, and a series of biographical sketches, Frederick Brown’s book is both illuminating and a warning. . . . This is terrific history—Brown is an incisive biographer, very good on politics, still better on culture, and anybody who is interested in France . . . should read this book.” —The Daily Beast
 
“A stimulating portrayal. . . . Brown deftly and economically analyzes [his subjects]. . . . He succeeds as usual in joining accurate scholarship to elegant and often pithy style.” —The New York Review of Books
 
“[Brown] is a historian who eschews jargon and knows how to make complicated questions clear to the common reader.” —The Wall Street Journal