THE GRAND NARRATIVE: INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF OUR TIME

Johan Chapoutot

(PUF,  384 pages, 2021)

 ***25,000 COPIES SOLD***

***Greek rights (Polis) granted ***

 An eminent historian of Germany and Nazism, Johann Chapoutot scrutinized the mental world of Nazi ideologues. With this new book, he broadens his vision by retracing the grand narratives that since the Middle Ages have shaped collective beliefs and guided individual lives: providentialism and scientism, communism and postmodernism, and not least, the array of conspiracy theories that are currently invading our political landscape. In this ode to the task of the historian, Chapoutot reflects on the human need to tell stories that map and give meaning to our brief stay on Earth.

 In the West, the “quest for meaning” was once the business of theologians who saw the hand of God or Providence in the unfolding of History. Then, in Verdun and again in Auschwitz, religion lost its explanatory power already eroded over the previous century by the myth of progress and the hope of science. Chapoutot retraces the various attempts by which historians, philosophers and novelists have responded to the “disenchantment of the world:” from the so-called “secular religions” (fascism, communism but also liberalism and its many avatars (ultra-, neo ...) to the most recent iterations of “the end of history” and the postmodern incredulity towards metanarratives. Chapoutot’s own ambitious grand narrative ends with an original analysis of  “contemporary –isms:” transhumanism, messianism, bullshitism, declinism, and jihadism.

 Although historical facts remain his anchor, Chapoutot reminds us that history is a particular way of telling stories, in part with (social) science and literature. We live in a time when “storytelling” has invaded contemporary culture from therapeutics to marketing, and when the grand narratives that aimed to structure human history have been questionned. From this paradox, in appearance only, Chapoutot daringly proposes to rethink the way we tell the story of the present and embrace the never-ending quest to make sense of the world we all live in.

 Johann Chapoutot is Professor of Contemporary History at Sorbonne University. His books, distinguished by numerous French and foreign prizes, are translated into ten languages, and include in English, The Law of Blood: Thinking and Acting as a Nazi (Belknap Press, 2018), and Greeks, Romans, Germans: How the Nazis Usurped Europe's Classical Past (‎ University of California Press, 2016.)