French Literature Reviews - 2026
Y. Citton, Zazirocratie
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas
Yves Citton, Zazirocratie. Très curieuse introduction à la biopolitique et à la critique de la croissance
Paris: Éditions Amsterdam, 2011.
378 p.
Price: 21 EUR.
EAN: 9782354800888.
Publisher's overview:
In 1761, Charles Tiphaigne de la Roche, an obscure Norman physician, published L’Empire des Zaziris sur les humains ou la Zazirocratie. Little did he know that, two and a half centuries later, his work would be read as a brilliant X-ray of the ambiguities inherent in our biopolitical regimes. The Zaziris are all the simulacra that drive our desires toward the relentless growth of our consumerist economies. Zazirocracy is a regime that exhausts our lives in its very attempt to enrich them.
This book offers a delightfully spirited interpretation of a wrongfully forgotten author who, as early as 1760, "anticipated" photography, global remote surveillance, hyperreality, digitization, pheromones, and nanotubes. Through a historical and literary detour, this curious journey provides an engaging introduction to the biopolitical analysis of contemporary societies. It outlines a worldview that partakes of both clairvoyance and cartography, penetrating the underlying logic of our world of flows. Above all, it reveals that our imaginary of growth is haunted by a plant-based model that blinds us to our era's most crucial task: not so much smashing the idol of growth as finding the means to rein it in and redirect it.
Yves Citton is Professor of Literature at the University of Grenoble and a member of UMR-LIRE (CNRS 5611). His recent publications include Mythocratie. Storytelling et imaginaire de gauche (Éditions Amsterdam, 2010), L’Avenir des Humanités (La Découverte, 2010), Lire, interpréter, actualiser (Éditions Amsterdam, 2007), and L’Envers de la liberté (Éditions Amsterdam, 2006). He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Multitudes.
The concept of biopolitics, which emerged from the work of Michel Foucault, concerns the ways in which modern states exert control over the biological lives of their populations. By revisiting the 18th-century text L'Empire des Zaziris sur les humains ou la Zazirocratie, this study situates contemporary anxieties regarding consumerist growth within a longer intellectual history. The work discusses how the imaginary of growth is underpinned by a plant-based model, which obscures the necessity of redirecting economic expansion. Readers interested in the intersection of literary history and political philosophy may find this examination of early anticipatory narratives relevant.
The Zaziris are described as the simulacra that drive desires toward the growth of consumerist economies. By tracing these themes back to the writings of Charles Tiphaigne de la Roche, the text explores how early literature anticipated phenomena such as hyperreality, global surveillance, and digital technologies. This approach combines historical inquiry with an analysis of the logic governing contemporary societies. The work addresses the challenge of managing the growth-oriented systems that characterize our current era, framing this task as a central concern for understanding the underlying dynamics of our world of flows.