Abstract
The lesson begins with a tribute to the cities of Ukraine, and Kiev in particular, bombed by Russian forces. Volney's pages resonate terribly with these current events.
Volney's meditation on the ruins is the promise of a new work, the starting point for another possible history. Ironically, Volney's work itself is partly lost, insofar as it is forgotten today (a frequent condition of loss). Volney traveled to the United States, befriending Thomas Jefferson. Following this trip, he wrote a detailed geographical description, Tableau du climat et du sol des États-Unis d'Amérique, which was later ironically summarized by Sainte-Beuve. Yet Volney offered a remarkably modern anthropological perspective, equating the " Savages of America " with the " Greeks of Homer " to illustrate the " misery of the human condition ". In his view, the Amerindians lived in an illusory sense of happiness, comparable to that experienced by soldiers on the battlefield. Developing a whole way of thinking about alienation, Volney considered that real happiness was necessarily linked to freedom, and therefore different from the feeling of happiness. This idea that progress was objectifiable shows that the revolutionary heritage nourished his thinking.
