The summer of 1939 marked the end of peacetime for French intellectuals

Evidence

Merleau-Ponty’s visit to Louvain took place during the last few months of peace, in 1939. This was the year, as Beauvoir later described it, when history would take hold of them all and never again let them go. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 436

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Prewar France experienced 1939-40 as a somnambulistic, paralyzed waiting — Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, 21; The French Revolution’s political era ended with the 1918 armistice — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2076

Broader Connections

• Prewar France experienced 1939-40 as a somnambulistic, paralyzed waiting #qualifies (0.82) — Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, 21
• The French Revolution’s political era ended with the 1918 armistice #expands (0.72) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2076