What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error.

Essai d'analyse Paris: Editions Monde nouveau 1953 (under the pseudonym François Houtisse with Boris Souvarine)
L'Opium des intellectuels Paris: Calmann-Lévy 1955; The Opium of the Intellectuals London: Secker & Warburg 1957
Polémiques Paris: Gallimard 1955
La Tragédie algérienne Paris: Plon 1957
Espoir et peur du siècle. Oppermann Matthias (Ed. Aron took first place in the Agrégation of philosophy in 1928 the year Sartre failed the same exam.

Citing the breadth and quality of Aron's writings historian James R. Raymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron (French: [ʁɛmɔ̃ aʁɔ̃]; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher sociologist journalist and political scientist. He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people -- Aron argues that in post-war France Marxism was the opium of intellectuals.