Hope and fear

By David Bidussa*

Centuries of modernity, told us years ago Jean Delumeau in his La peur en Occident, have unwrapped in mounting tension between hope and fear. So, along with ostentatious confidences, we saw terrifying monsters everywhere: the devil, the Jew, the witch, the heretic, the ideologic adversary, generally the “other”. Is this really a new time?

* Social Historian of Ideas