A critical history of the nouveaux philosophes movement, from its inception to today

The darling of the nouveaux philosophes, Bernard-Henri Lévy has been a lightning rod in the French intellectual landscape for over twenty-five years. Splashing onto the scene with his 1977 début on the French television program “Apostrophes,” Bernard-Henri Lévy has made a career out of being a “public intellectual.”

Wooed by the media, published by the most prominent houses and journals, and sparking controversy (and bestselling numbers) with Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, Lévy has openly declared himself as the heir to Barthes, Malraux, Sartre, and Camus. But do his works and pronouncements truly live up to this standard? Examining BHL’s media-savvy persona, the authors argue that his identity as a so-called philosopher is more a result of effective branding than profound intellectual reflection.