Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (French: Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde) is a 1978 book by René Girard. Chris Fleming writes that it "contained not only a comprehensive overview of Girard's work up to that point, but a very substantial reflection on the Judaeo-Christian texts." The book became a national bestseller in France, and provoked "intense (and often heated) discussion in the upper echelons of the French academy. Theorists such as Michel Serres, Paul Ricoeur, and Philippe Sollers were all admirers of the work, and, later, other theorists such as the renowned Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo and the Canadian social and political theorist Charles Taylor expressed - and, indeed, continue to express - more than a token admiration for Girard's project."^[1]