Albert Camus and Alexandre De Gramont - Between Hell and Reason: Essays from the Resistance Newspaper "Combat", 1944-1947

From 1943 to 1947, Albert Camus was editor-in-chief of the famous underground and post-Liberation French newspaper Combat. Among his journalist writings during this period were eloquent essays that grappled with questions of revolution, violence, freedom, justice, ethics, and the emerging social order. The 41 pieces collected here--most never before published in English--tell the story of a sensitive man's odyssey from "hell to reason" at a time of tremendous upheaval while also providing a missing link between Camus's pre-war and post-war works. Almost lyrical in their intensity of thought and language, these newspaper pieces show a Camus new to most American readers and are a unique testimony to an extraordinary period in history with parallels to current changes in Eastern Europe. At the time of Liberation in 1944, Camus called for a revolution in French society, including a violent purge of those who had sided with the Nazis. When this turned into a near civil war of personal vendettas and summary execu