the century  everywhere, the twentieth century has been judged and condemned: the century of totalitarian terror, of utopian and criminal ideologies, of empty illusions, of genocides, of false avant-gardes, of democratic realism everywhere replaced by abstraction. <p>it is not badiou&apos;s wish to plead for an accused that is perfectly capable of defending itself without the authors aid. nor does he seek to proclaim, like frantz, the hero of sartre&apos;s prisoners of altona, &apos;i have taken the century on my shoulders and i have said: i will answer for it!&apos; the century simply aims to examine what this accursed century, from within its own unfolding, said that it was. badiou&apos;s proposal is to reopen the dossier on the century - not from the angle of those wise and sated judges we too often claim to be, but from the standpoint of the century itself.</p>