An enormous contribution to our understanding not only of Romania's tormented past, but also of European intellectual history.
Marci Shore, Indiana University
Slavic and East European Journal
Represents the most thorough analysis of Cioran's inter-war fascination with fascism and nationalism...thought-provoking read.
Patterns Of Prejudice
A thorough and vivid portrait of a Romanian gifted fascist thinker, ... Read morewho dreamed about `a Romania with the population of China and the destiny of France.' Like his legionary colleagues, Emil Cioran admired Hitler, justified his crimes and believed that capitalism was `immoral, Judaic and anti-Christian.' Unlike other Iron Guard ideologists, Cioran praised Lenin and envisioned a modern Romania driven by industrialization and urban values. Like his comrades, Cioran advocated a fascist dictatorship and cultivated Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the criminal fuhrer of the Iron Guard. But unlike his friend and fellow Iron Guard ideologist, Mircea Eliade, who did not show any willingness to part with his totalitarian past, Cioran had the decency, in his productive French exile, to regret his fascist youth and break with it.
Radu Ioanid Dense but fresh work.
Publishers Weekly
A vivid social and political memoir.
Diane C. Donovan, editor, Midwest Book Review
Midwest Book Review
A sure and unobtrusive guide to the fevered, alienated milieu that turned Cioran...into a passionate partisan of Hitler.
Robert Legvold
Foreign Affairs
Excellent.... Marta Petreu's biography is a well-documented account of everything shameful that Cioran ever wrote.
Zbigniew Janowski
First Things
Brilliantly thorough.
Carlin Romano
The Chronicle of Higher Education
From now on, I'll never read Cioran with as much appreciation.
Eric Rasmussen
University Of Illinois, Chicago
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