ABSTRACT
French philosopher and social theorist Henri Lefebvre (1901-91) was a deeply political figure. A committed Marxist and leading intellectual within the French Communist Party, he perceived philosophy not as some isolated and specialized discipline, but as an activity that should be closely related to political practice. Although he became estranged from the French Communist Party in 1958, as it continued to support Stalinist beliefs, he remained committed to the revolutionary cause. Indeed he is regarded as one of the influential figures behind the events of May 1968, and the highly popular lectures which he gave as a professor of sociology at Nanterre are often viewed as one of the factors that helped to ignite the subsequent student uprisings.
