Epilogue: Beyond 1933

Summary

Post-First World War intellectual relief failed; violence against intellectuals and sites of learning proved to be a reality of modern warfare, as demonstrated by attacks on universities in the Spanish Civil War and the Sino-Japanese War, and the flight of intellectuals both within and from Europe after 1933. The symbolically rebuilt library at Louvain was destroyed again in 1940 during the Second World War. Meanwhile, the rise of totalitarianism showed that intellectuals were not bulwarks of democracy as post-war rhetoric had implied. The epilogue shows how post-First World War intellectual relief influenced the rescue of intellectuals fleeing Nazi persecution as well as the way in intellectual life was rebuilt following the Second World War, notably through the establishment of UNESCO. The reconstruction of intellectual life after the Great War continues to resonate in the twenty-first century.