Book Review: Serge Moscovici, Mon après-guerre à Paris. Chronique des années retrouvées (2019)
Mots-clés :
Serge Moscovici, autobiography, social psychology, antisemitism, traumaRésumé
Mon après-guerre à Paris. Chronique des années retrouvées (My post-war in Paris. Chronicle of the years found) is Serge Moscovici’s second autobiographical volume. It was edited and annotated by philosopher and historian Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, with the support of the Shoah Memorial, and published by the Éditions Grasset thanks to the perseverance of his sons, Denis and Pierre Moscovici. The manuscript was edited in French from handwritten notes in seven or eight languages found posthumously and is illustrated with superb photos from the family's personal archives. It won the “Influences” Ideas Prize 2019. Who is this young foreigner, ‘person-less’ (sans-personne), who arrived in Paris at 22 years old, carrying ‘a legacy of 6 million dead’? How did he transform a traumatic life-course into a legacy of innovation, creativity and change? How did his gaze, coupled with a particular sensitivity that he called his radar, change the trajectory of social psychology, renovate its questions, lead to new scientific paradigms? How does his heritage touch us today, in the European and global context marked by extreme crises and threats? The story is captivating.