Siegfried Kracauer's 'L'Histoire. Des avant-dernières choses' Published in French

The French translation of Siegfried Kracauer's final book, 'L'Histoire. Des avant-dernières choses,' has been published, long awaited since the author's death in 1966. Kracauer (1889–1966) was a multifaceted figure—architect, novelist, sociologist, journalist, film critic, philosopher, and historian—whose work prefigured cultural studies. His writings examined the fragmented cultural sphere, focusing on entertainment and distractions like detective novels, cinema, operetta, and urban life. His autobiographical novel 'Ginster,' translated in the 1930s by Clara Malraux, is considered a masterpiece blending burlesque and existential themes. The posthumous book, unfinished, is a broad reflection on historiography, central to his thought. Influenced late in life by exchanges with Meyer Shapiro and Erwin Panofsky, and by readings of Jacob Burckhardt, Marc Bloch, and Walter Benjamin, Kracauer interrogates historical knowledge, its philosophical presuppositions, and methodological aspects. He viewed historiography as neither scientific nor artistic but an intermediate, inherently unstable domain. The edition is edited by Kracauer specialists Nia Perivolaropoulou and Philippe Despoix, with an illuminating introduction by Jacques Revel.