What do Leon Blum, Albert Camus, and Raymond Aron have in common? Tony Judt examines these brilliant representatives of French intelligentsia and shows how they could defy public opinion and uphold their own principles. Blind devotion to different extremist ideologies is typical for French intellectuals of the twentieth century. In his book “The Burden of Responsibility — Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century” Tony Judt tells about three French intellectuals who managed not to give up and kept their moral and intellectual principles. The most surprising and impressive thing about these sons of their people is that nobody of them belonged to authentic French intellectuals. Albert Camus was brought up and got his education in Algeria while Leon Blum and Raymond Aron were both Jews.
The biggest part of the book is devoted to Blum telling about his fight against extremism before World War II and then about Vichy trial, his life in concentration camps Buchenwald and Dachau and then his work as a prime minister in the post—war France. Camus is shown as an uncompromising fighter of the Resistance during WWII and brilliant existentialist. Raymond Aron, a famous philosopher and historian, represents the ideal of French intelligentsia. Telling about these three intellectuals Judt reminds of the responsibility they had to carry at that time and draws a clear parallel with the modern world. The book is very interesting as a biographical study of these outstanding people of the twentieth century and also provides obvious examples of responsibility modern intellectuals should never forget about.

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