ALEM (Jean-Pierre), Enfantin, the Prophet with Seven Faces. - Lot 4

ALEM (Jean-Pierre), Enfantin, the Prophet with Seven Faces. Paris, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1963. In-8, paperback, publisher’s printed cover. A study devoted to the unique personality of Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin (1796–1864), a major figure in the Saint-Simonian movement and one of the most original thinkers of 19th-century France. As a historian of ideas and a specialist in utopian movements, Jean-Pierre Alem traces in this work the intellectual, spiritual, and political journey of the man whom his disciples nicknamed “Father Enfantin.” Through a thorough analysis of texts, correspondence, and contemporary accounts, the author sheds light on the many facets of a complex figure—hence the subtitle *The Prophet with Seven Faces*. An engineer, social reformer, religious leader, theorist of women’s emancipation, promoter of major industrial projects, and visionary of modernity, Enfantin emerges as one of the most remarkable figures of the early 19th century. The book also sheds light on the history of Saint-Simonism, a movement that exerted considerable influence on the intellectual, economic, and technical elites of modern France. Many of his followers, in fact, played a role in the development of railroads, banks, industry, and the major public works projects that permanently transformed the country during the July Monarchy and the Second Empire. Published by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, a publisher known for his interest in nonconformist schools of thought and marginal intellectual figures, this volume constitutes an important contribution to the rediscovery of the great social utopians of the 19th century. Copy preserved in its original printed brochure, as originally published. An interesting intellectual biography of a key figure in Saint-Simonism, a movement that exerted a decisive influence on the economic, social, and political transformations of contemporary France.