Pocket Pantheon: Figures of Postwar Philosophy

In this accessible work, France’s leading radical thinker takes his readers on an incisive journey through twentieth-century philosophy. On the way he pays homage to great thinkers who have influenced him, whether as teachers, allies or opponents: from Althusser, Lacan and Sartre to Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault. Although Pocket Pantheon is at times critical, Badiou defends both his subjects and their work by setting them against the contemporary landscape of pop philosophers and media commentators.

“One of the most important philosophers writing today.” — Joan Copjec

Praise for Ethics

“Scarcely any other moral thinker of our day is as politically clear-sighted and courageously polemical, so prepared to put notions of truth and universality back on the agenda.” — Terry Eagleton

Praise for The Century

“The lesson of the book is: remain faithful to the twentieth century. The Century is not ‘the best’ book of the last decade, it is simply the book of the last decade! Read it with the proper tremor, aware that you are reading a classic, that a figure like Plato or Hegel walks here among us! — Slavoj Zizek

“Badiou’s sardonically compressed style is never less than pungent.” — Steve Poole, The Guardian

Alain Badiou is the author of Being and Event, Ethics, Metapolitics, Polemics, Infinite Thought and Handbook of Inaesthetics. He teaches philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure.