Life

A Biography of Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) by Patrick Chastenet, trans. Lesley Graham Jacques Ellul adhered to the maxim “think globally, act locally” throughout his life. He often said that he was born in Bordeaux by chance on January 6, 1912, but that it was by choice that he spent almost all his academic career there. After a long illness, he died on May 19, 1994, in his house in Pessac just a mile or two from the University of Bordeaux campus, surrounded by those closest to him. Not long before his death, the limitations of the treatment for this illness confirmed to him once again one of his favorite themes: the ambivalence of technological progress. Although he was deeply attached to the Aquitaine region in southwestern France, his cosmopolitan roots produced a deep dislike of any nationalistic feeling. His paternal grandmother was Serbian, a descendant of the Obrenovic’ family, his … Read More

Jacques Ellul’s Social and Political Commitments by Daniel Cérézuelle  (translated by Lisa Richmond) Ellul wanted to think out his life as well as live out his thought. Whether it concerned his religious faith or his analysis of social life, he sought to put his thought into practice by his action within society. These notes do not address Ellul’s actions as they relate to the Reformed Church of France, his professional life at the University of Bordeaux, or the private help or advice he may have given to individual people. Resistance (1940–1945) At Martres: After being dismissed by the Petain government from his position of professor in July 1940, Ellul went to live on a farm at Martres, a tiny village 40 km from Bordeaux. His house rapidly became a place of welcome for those trying to reach the free zone [unoccupied France]: Spanish republicans, resisters, Poles, Russians, and Jews on … Read More

Bernard Charbonneau (1910-1996): An Introduction to His Life and Thinking  by Daniel Cerezuelle “Charbonneau insists that the issues of technoscientific development, of totalitarianism, and of ecological disruption are interrelated.”   Born and educated in Bordeaux, under the shadow of World War I, the first truly industrialized war, Charbonneau passed his agrégation in both history and geography, but chose not to follow the standard academic career. Instead, he elected employment at a small teachers’ college in order to be able to live a rural life in the Pyrenees. Charbonneau spent almost thirty years of intellectual loneliness in developing his analysis of the socio-economic and environmental costs of modern technoscientific development: what he calls “the great mutation.” Early on, Charbonneau became convinced that since the time of the war, humankind was experiencing an utterly new phase in its history, one that displays two basic characteristics. First, the Great War (World War I), … Read More