Pierre-Andre Taguieff's Precheurs de Haine (Preachers of Hatred) is a polemic. It is vicious. Not infrequently, it is venomous. And its target is the Left.

Taguieff makes sweeping generalisations. His criticisms sometimes border on burlesque caricature. His attacks on individuals are often personalised and abusive. And Taguieff's own politics are certainly not particularly left-wing.

But, despite such qualifications, and many other equally necessary reservations, the political arguments at the core of Taguieff are, on one level, essentially correct. Not in relation to the Left as a whole, but certainly in relation to specific, and in some countries dominant, currents within the Left.

(Taguieff's specific target is the French far Left. Ironically, his arguments are far more applicable to the British Left, or at least that section of it in and around the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). It would not be much of an exaggeration to say of Taguieff's book: right arguments – wrong country.)

Preachers of Hatred runs to over 950 pages. There are around two thousand footnotes. On some pages there are more footnotes than text (page 268: 3 lines of text, and a 52- line footnote continued from the previous page; pages 368/9: 13 lines of text, and 92 lines of footnotes; page 915: 6 lines of text, and 50 lines of footnotes).

There is enough material in the footnotes for a separate book. In fact, given that Taguieff's most vituperative and personal attacks are usually reserved for the footnotes, it might have been better if the footnotes had been hived off into another book.

Preachers of Hatred is a collection of conference papers reworked into essays. As a consequence, there is no linear development of Taguieff's chain of argument. Between the different essays there is overlap and repetition. At the same time, given the lack of continuity between the different essays, there are arguably missing links in the book's overall arguments.

The coherence of Taguieff's arguments is further disrupted by the staccato of his polemical denunciations, and by the burden imposed on the reader of virtually having to simultaneously read two books (the text itself; and the material in the footnotes).

The easiest way to ‘get one's head around' Preachers of Hatred is to separate out and summarise Taguieff's basic analytical arguments before attempting to pass verdict on them.

The admitted drawback of such an approach, however, is that it focuses on the book's strengths (Taguieff's core arguments) and pushes into the background the book's weaknesses (the specific yet sweeping political conclusions and judgements which Taguieff draws from those arguments).


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