Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh picks his book of the year for the Times Literary Supplement

Sudhir Hazareesingh has been asked to select his book of the year for Times Literary Supplement (26 November).  He chose a biography of the French socialist leader Jaurès.

He writes, "The year 2014 marked the centenary of the assassination of the French Socialist leader Jean Jaurès, an anniversary fittingly honoured by Gilles Candar and Vincent Duclert’s Jean Jaurès (Fayard). This magnificent biography superbly conveys Jaurès’s intellectual energy and his soaring sense of humanity. It dwells on his major contribution to the Dreyfusard campaign, his extraordinary eloquence as a parliamentarian, and his valiant struggles for workers’ rights and for a lasting European peace. Jaurès’s internationalism also led him to criticize French colonial practices, and celebrate Islamic civilization. There is a fascinating evocation, too, of his self-styled ‘meridional identity’, rooted in his idealization of the petite patrie. As socialism faces a grave crisis in France, and soulless technocrats have colonized the State and the political system, Jaurès’s imaginative synthesis of republican and socialist thought offers a salutary reminder of the richness of the French progressive tradition, and the virtue of principled moral leadership."