Four years ago, we posted a link to a critique of a book ironically called
'Against The Modern World', which starts like this :
"This book—the curious cover of which reminds one more of a spy-story than an
academic work—declares itself to be "a biography of René Guénon and a history of
the Traditionalist movement that he founded" (p. vii). This is rather a strange
objective on the part of an author who hardly makes any reference to the works
of the most important authors of the spiritual current at issue, and who either
fails to refer to its numerous representatives or just lightly touches upon some
of their names; furthermore, he appears to know little about the periodicals of
this current and mainly refers to those accessible through the Internet. In our
view it is too ambitious to define a book "a history of René Guénon and the
Traditionalists" (ibid.) when the author is in the dark about certain important
historical sources of the theme, and consequently writes "Heidnische
Imperialismus" instead of Heidnischer Imperialismus (pp. 104, 298, 353),
"Editions Traditionnels" in place of Editions Traditionnelles (p. 132),
"Herrenclub" for Herrenklub (p. 224), "Agiza" instead of Algiza (pp. 297, 319),
and "Mediterranée" in place of Mediterranee (p. 320). In addition to all this,
he does not manage to give the precise date of birth of Julius Evola either (p.
363), although he devotes nearly two chapters to him. All in all, it is quite
obvious that we cannot find a work reliable, when, expressing the references to
Hungary numerically, it transpires that out of 21 pieces of information 13 are
false (pp. 186–187). We do not intend, however, to dwell upon these mistakes too
long, since the work of the assistant professor of the American University in
Cairo includes much graver errors than these."
(the new url is http://www.istenivaros.hu/roberthorvath/sedgwickenglish.html)
Meanwhile, we had the opportunity to find out for ourselves the extent of the
intellectual dishonnesty of this slanderer, whose rag would inevitably draw the
mercantile attention of a French publisher sooner or later.
Another critique of it was published at
http://ruh.religioperennis.org/documents/Fitzgerald/Sedgwick.pdf
--- In evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, "evola_as_he_is" <evola_as_he_is@...>
wrote:
>
> In connection with the introduction to 'Youth, Beats, and Right-Wing
> Anarchists', those who have never heard of Henri Hartung (1921-1988)
> and haven't read Sedgwick's study may like to have some biographical
> data about him.
> He was formed philosophically in the 1940's by his reading of Sri
> Ramana Maharshi. "Schuon's one-time follower", he was "a pioneer in
> executive and continuing education". In the 1960's, he run an adult
> training institute promoted and sponsored by de Gaulle. In May 1968,
> students fought riot police in the Quartier Latin. Hartung's institute
> was deserted. At some point, Hartung, who was champing at the bit,
> told his secretary : "If somebody asks for me, please tell him that I
> am on the barricades!"
> (http://perso.orange.fr/js.resurgences/marche20.htm)
> A few days later, he sold his institute and his big car, and retired
> in Switzerland, where he began to write books and pursued his studies
> in continuing education.
> It seems that the interview which Evola gave him can be found in
> 'Rencontres Romaines au milieu des ruines', L'Age d'Or (Puiseaux,
> 1985), No. 4, which we have not been able to check, and which has not
> been published in Italian.
> In any case, any attentive reader of 'Men among the Ruins' is aware
> that, by then, Evola considered that any possibility of initiation was
> precluded.
> While we are at it, see the sharp critique of Sedgwick's 'Against the
> Modern World' by R. Horvath :
>
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:qDgadq1GYEUJ:www.geocities.com/divinecities/r\
oberthorvath/RHorvathSedgwickFinal.pdf+hartung+evola&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=uk
>