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Jacques Ellul: A Tempered Profile

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

David C. Menninger
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Extract

Jacques Ellul today lives and works in the French city in which he was born over sixty years ago, Bordeaux. His public life has two major aspects. First, he is a scholar, with degrees in history, sociology, and law. Before the Second World War he was director of studies at the University of Strasbourg until his dismissal by the Vichy government. Now he is professor of history and sociology of institutions at the University of Bordeaux. During the war he was active in the Resistance, and after the Liberation had the chance to begin a promising political career when he served for two years as deputy mayor of Bordeaux under Jacques Chalban-Delmas. But he abandoned that prospect to devote his time fully to teaching and writing. He has written more than twenty books and more than a hundred articles.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 235 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1975

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References

1 Holloway, James Y., ed., Introducing Jacques Ellul (Grand Rapids, 1970), p. 6Google Scholar.

2 Ellul, Jacques, The Technological Society, tr. Wilkinson, John (New York, 1964)Google Scholar; Propaganda, tr. Kellen, Konrad and Lemer, Jean (New York, 1973)Google Scholar; The Political Illusion, tr. Kellen, Konrad (New York, 1972)Google Scholar.

3 Ellul, , Technological Society, p. xxvGoogle Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 6.

5 Ferkiss, Victor, Technological Man: The Myth and the Reality (New York, 1970), p. 37Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., p. 82.

7 Shorter, Edward, “Industrial Society in Trouble: Some Recent Views,” The American Scholar, Spring, 1971, p. 336Google Scholar.

8 Hunter, Robert, The Enemies of Anarchy (New York, 1970)Google Scholar.

9 Interview with the author, October 20, 1973. Ellul's assertion that Marx would cite technique as the crucial social phenomenon of our time is not at all far-fetched when considering how both Marx and Engels were fascinated even by the technology of the nineteenth century. See Bober's, M. M. discussion of this in his book, Karl Marx's Interpretation of History (New York, 1965), pp. 8–11Google Scholar.

10 See Ellul, Jacques, A Critique of the New Commonplaces, tr. Weaver, Helen (New York, 1968)Google Scholar.

11 Interview with the author, October 30, 1973.

12 Interview with the author, October 24, 1973.

13 Ibid.

14 Holloway, , Introducing Ellul, p. 5Google Scholar.

15 Ellul, Jacques, The Presence of the Kingdom, tr. Wyon, Olive (New York, 1967), pp. 59–60Google Scholar.

16 Interview with the author, October 24, 1973.

17 Ibid.

18 Ellul, , Presence, p. 24Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., p. 7.

20 Ibid., pp. 9–12.

21 Ibid., p. 12.

22 Ibid., p. 17.

23 Luke 8: 17.

24 Ellul, , Presence, p. 56Google Scholar.

25 Interview with the author, October 24, 1973.

26 Ellul's latest book to be translated into English is on the theme of hope: Hope in Time of Abandonment, tr. Hopkin, C. Edward (New York, 1973)Google Scholar.