'Surrealism', wrote Georges Bataille in 1945, 'has from the start given consistency to a "morality of revolt" and its most important contribution - important perhaps even in the political realm - is to have remained, in matters of morality, a revolution.'.

For Bataille, 'the absence of myth' had itself become the myth of the modern age. In a world that had 'lost the secret of its cohesion', Bataille saw surrealism as both a symptom and the beginning of an attempt to address this loss. His writings on this theme - which he had hoped to assemble into a book and which are published here for the first time - mostly date from the immediate postwar period, and are the result of profound reflection in the wake of World War Two.

In one respect they represent preliminary notes for his later work, especially for The Accursed Share and Theory of Religion. But many of the issues raised were never taken up again; therefore they offer a fresh perspective on his thinking at a decisive time.

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Together, these texts also comprise perhaps the most incisive study yet made of surrealism, insisting on its importance as a cultural and social phenomenon with far-reaching consequences. They clarify Bataille's links with the surrealist movement, and throw revealing light on his complex and greatly misunderstood relationship with Andre Breton.

Above all, The Absence of Myth shows Bataille to be a much more radical figure than his postmodernist devotees would have us believe: a man who continually tried to extend Marxist social theory; a pessimistic thinker, but one as far removed from nihilism as can be.