Jean Fran ois Revel was a French politician, journalist, author, prolific philosopher and member of the Acad mie fran aise since June 1998.He was best known for his books Without Marx or Jesus The New American Revolution Has Begun, The Flight from Truth The Reign of Deceit in the Age of Information and his 2002 book Anti Americanism, one year after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks In the latter book, Revel criticised those Europeans who argued that the United States had brought about the terrorist attacks upon itself through misguided foreign policies He wrote thus Obsessed by their hatred and floundering in illogicality, these dupes forget that the United States, acting in her own self interest, is also acting in the interest of us Europeans and in the interests of many other countries, threatened, or already subverted and ruined, by terrorism In 1975 he delivered the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden, The Netherlands, under the title La tentation totalitaire The Totalitarian Temptation.