Geneva, Éditions des Antipodes, 1985 ; one vol. in-8°, 814 p. — Belgian Socialist, Henri de Man, has been the subject of a number of biographical studies and colloquia over the last twenty years. In contrast to some of the more recent work that has considered de Man's career in terms of the questions raised by his activities in Belgium during the German occupation, Michel Brélaz has chosen to limit his study of the Man to the period, 1918-1933. Brélaz wrote Henri de Man. Une autre idée du socialisme to confirm the significance of de Man's work. In his 814 page "essai", Brélaz attempts to demonstrate the consistency and coherence of de Man's theories through his three phases of development during the inter- war period: "le réformiste de 1918, le socialiste éthique et volontatiste de 1927, et le planiste de 1933" (p. 8). According to Brélaz, de Man defined a clear post-industrial alternative to the two nineteenth-century paths of capitalism and Marxism. For Brélaz, de Man does not just present "une autre idée", but "l'idée du socialisme".

Brélaz begins his study of de Man's ideas with the First World War when young de Man suffered a crise de conscience as a result of his anti-militarism and his unresolved psychological relationship with a domineering father. Finally identifying with the father, de Man served the Belgian government for the last three years of the war, visiting America and falling temporarily under "le charme de sa découverte des États Unis" (p. 68). De Man returned to Europe after a second trip to America to formulate a synthesis of the pessimism of Marx and the optimism of the psychological theorists of the "New World". In one of his most notable innovations, according to Brélaz, the young de Man abandoned the Marxist theory of class struggle (p. 60). He rejected the materialism and determinism of orthodox Marxism, recognizing "l'utilité de la psychologie pour renouveler la théorie du socialisme" (p. 109).

In 1922, de Man distanced himself from the leaders of the Parti ouvrier belge with whom he found himself in conflict, traveling to Germany to pursue his studies in solitude. He now explained that he had succeeded in „dépasser Marxism" by understanding that the exploitation of the working class was not just the result of the extraction of surplus value. The worker's whole life, not just the workplace, inhibited the workers' instinct of "auto estimation", he argued ; the worker suffered from an inferiority complex. Therefore, de Man concluded, the socialists' goal should be an intellectual and moral revolution, not just the replacement of the economic infrastructure. Comparing de Man with his contemporary, Antonio Gramsci, Brélaz explains, "le renversement de la relation entre infrastructure et superstructure que l'on observe chez Gramsci et de Man — et que l'on pourrait observer d'une manière générale chez tous les critiques du marxisme vulgaire — coïncide avec la constatation du rôle croissant joué dans le société par des couches d'intellectuels qui ne se laissent incorporer ni dans la classe bourgeoise, ni dans la classe ouvrière" (p. 322). In 1926, de Man published his influential Au delà du marxisme, "un manifeste adressé à différents groupes de militants dont de Man partageait les désillusions et les espoirs" (p. 348).