Raymond Aron, The Dawn of Universal History: Selected Essays From a Witness to the Twentieth Century, translated from the French by Barbara Bray, edited by Yair Reiner, with and Introduction by Tony Judt (New York: Basic Books, 2002) (From the bookjacket: "Aron examines the spread of nationalism in Europe through two world wars and the subsequent disintegration of its empires. In charting the rise of the opposite ideological extremes of Fascism and Marxism and their respective descents into brutal totalitarianism, he concludes that those two political ideologies were essentially secular religions, taking the traditional place of religion as the 'opiate of the masses.' Aron explores America's role as an 'imperial republic' uneasily coming to terms with its emerging role as the world's sole superpower. He also presents French imperialism in Algeria and Indochina as a cautionary tale, both for its economic and political liabilities to the imperial power itself and its immoral treatment of the subjugated peoples. Finally, in a magisterial conclusion that synthesizes his ideas and universalizes the historical processes of the twentieth century, Aron ask the question, Has history become truly global and universal for all nations and peoples?").
Raymond Aron, History, Truth, Liberty: Selected Writings of Raymond Aron, edited by Franciszek Draus, with a Memoir by Edward Shils (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 1985).
