A01=Sheldon S. Wolin
Americans
Aristocracy
Author_Sheldon S. Wolin
Bourgeoisie
Capitalism
Career
Category=DNBH
Category=JPA
Category=NHD
Category=NHK
Category=QDTS
Civil society
Criticism
Decentralization
Democracy
Democracy in America
Democratization
Despotism
Dictatorship
Egalitarianism
Elitism
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Feudalism
Governance
Government
Ideology
Individualism
Institution
Intellectual
Liberal democracy
Liberalism
Majority rule
Modernity
Monarchy
Montesquieu
Morality
Multitude
Nation state
Natural and legal rights
Nobility
Participatory politics
Patriotism
Philosopher
Philosophy
Political constitution
Political culture
Political economy
Political philosophy
Political science
Political system
Politician
Politics
Politics of the United States
Politique
Popular sovereignty
Prejudice
Regime
Republicanism
Resentment
Revolution
Revolutionary movement
Rhetoric
Ruler
Self-interest
Sensibility
Slavery
Social class
Social revolution
State (polity)
State of nature
Theory
Thomas Hobbes
Tyranny of the majority
Tyrant
Uncertainty
Wealth
Writing
Product details
- ISBN 9780691114545
- Weight: 936g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 26 Jan 2003
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Alexis de Tocqueville may be the most influential political thinker in American history. He also led an unusually active and ambitious career in French politics. In this magisterial book, one of America's most important contemporary theorists draws on decades of research and thought to present the first work that fully connects Tocqueville's political and theoretical lives. In doing so, Sheldon Wolin presents sweeping new interpretations of Tocqueville's major works and of his place in intellectual history. As he traces the origins and impact of Tocqueville's ideas, Wolin also offers a profound commentary on the general trajectory of Western political life over the past two hundred years. Wolin proceeds by examining Tocqueville's key writings in light of his experiences in the troubled world of French politics. He portrays Democracy in America, for example, as a theory of discovery that emerged from Tocqueville's contrasting experiences of America and of France's constitutional monarchy. He shows us how Tocqueville used Recollections to reexamine his political commitments in light of the revolutions of 1848 and the threat of socialism.
He portrays The Old Regime and the French Revolution as a work of theoretical history designed to throw light on the Bonapartist despotism he saw around him. Throughout, Wolin highlights the tensions between Tocqueville's ideas and his activities as a politician, arguing that--despite his limited political success--Tocqueville was "perhaps the last influential theorist who can be said to have truly cared about political life." In the course of the book, Wolin also shows that Tocqueville struggled with many of the forces that constrain politics today, including the relentless advance of capitalism, of science and technology, and of state bureaucracy. He concludes that Tocqueville's insights and anxieties about the impotence of politics in a "postaristocratic" era speak directly to the challenges of our own "postdemocratic" age. A monumental new study of Tocqueville, this is also a rich and provocative work about the past, the present, and the future of democratic life in America and abroad.
Sheldon S. Wolin is Emeritus Professor of Politics, Princeton University. He also taught for many years at the University of California, Berkeley. His most famous book, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought, influenced a generation of political theorists.
