Daniel Singer

Europe Correspondent

Daniel Singer, for many years The Nation's Paris-based Europe correspondent, was born on September 26, 1926, in Warsaw, was educated in France, Switzerland and England and died on December 2, 2000, in Paris.

He was a contributor to The Economist, The New Statesman and the Tribune and appeared as a commentator on NPR, "Monitor Radio" and the BBC, as well as Canadian and Australian broadcasting. (These credits are for his English-language work; he was also fluent in French, Polish, Russian and Italian.)

He was the author of Prelude to Revolution: France in May 1968 (Hill & Wang, 1970), The Road to Gdansk (Monthly Review Press, 1981), Is Socialism Doomed?: The Meaning of Mitterrand (Oxford, 1988) and Whose Millennium? Theirs or Ours? (Monthly Review Press, 1999).

A specialist on the Western European left as well as the former Communist nations, Singer ranged across the Continent in his dispatches to The Nation. Singer sharply critiqued Western-imposed economic "shock therapy" in the former Eastern Bloc and US support for Boris Yeltsin, sounded early warnings about the re-emergence of Fascist politics into the Italian mainstream, and, across the Mediterranean, reported on an Algeria sliding into civil war.

The Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation was founded in 2000 to honor original essays that help further socialist ideas in the tradition of Daniel Singer.

 

Fact or Fiction? Fact or Fiction?

Jacques Attali, until June 25 the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development but for years the French President's personal assistant, cannot be too happy w...

Jan 2, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

Ex-Communists and Rough Beasts Ex-Communists and Rough Beasts

Capitalist euphoria proved short-lived in Europe. Five years ago we witnessed the collapse of the post-Stalinist empire, which folded with unexpected ease.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Supping With the French Devil Supping With the French Devil

Cartoonists can beat journalists at their own game of first oversimplifying and then exaggerating.

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Does the Left Have a Future? Does the Left Have a Future?

With the Soviet model shattered forever, it is the social democratic one that is now in deep crisis in Western Europe. On the face of it, judging just by the results of June's Eu...

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

Le Pen’s Pals–Blood and Soil Le Pen’s Pals–Blood and Soil

There are two unmistakable signs that France is entering a pre-electoral period: The government is once again tinkering with the electoral law and the politicians, particularly t...

Jan 2, 1998 / Feature / Daniel Singer

La Peste La Peste

Paris

Jan 2, 1998 / Daniel Singer

The Sound and the Furet The Sound and the Furet

History may not have come to a stop in 1989, but the public is still under the spell of the counterpoint in Francis Fukuyama's famous exercise in propaganda: Capitalism is eterna...

Jan 1, 1998 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Singer

In Europe, Hope Amid the Ruins In Europe, Hope Amid the Ruins

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,/But to be young was very heaven!" The words of Wordsworth do not fully fit, because with so much bloodshed, the stench of corpses, and ske...

Apr 27, 1995 / Feature / Daniel Singer

The Stench of Corruption The Stench of Corruption

A righteous wind is sweeping across Europe and corruption is being exposed all over.

Dec 15, 1994 / Feature / Daniel Singer

The Continent Divided The Continent Divided

Nineteen ninety-three was to be a banner year for Europe. With the opening of the Single Market people would cross frontiers without visas and goods would flow unhindered by tari...

Jan 8, 1993 / Feature / Daniel Singer

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