Reflections on Violence

More than a century after Reflections on Violence first appeared (1908) it remains a remarkably controversial essay. The concept of violence as a means to an end (social, religious, political or for aggrandisement) is hugely challenging as a philosophical subject - yet it is, of course, universally (and frequently) pursued.

The French thinker and political theorist Georges Sorel (1847-1922), fired up by his interest in Marxism and his anger at the injustice of the Dreyfus case, faced this ch...