Tocqueville and the Two Democracies - Couverture rigide

Lamberti, Jean-Claude

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0674894359 ISBN 13 : 9780674894358

Editeur : Harvard University Press, 1989

Synopsis

Why did the French Revolution lead to the crimes of the Terror, whereas the American Revolution brought forth a liberal democracy? Alexis de Tocqueville spent a lifetime trying to understand the paradox. This first book on the genesis of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America considers his two main themes of democracy and revolution in the light of his own early political activities and his subsequent studies of the past, and thereby makes a valuable contribution to intellectual history.

In tracing the evolution of Tocqueville’s work, Jean-Claude Lamberti reveals Tocqueville’s enormous intellectual debt to Montesquieu; skillfully analyzes all that separates Tocqueville from the liberal French school, particularly Benjamin Constant and François Guizot; shows that Tocqueville believed that the only means of preventing new revolutions (which he abhorred) was to increase political freedom, especially that of association; sketches the difference between Tocqueville and counter-revolutionaries on the question of individualism, which Tocqueville wished to correct but not annihilate. Never before have historians been able to place Tocqueville so securely in the genealogy of French liberalism. This new work demonstrates his relevance to the world today.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Jean-Claude Lamberti is Professor of Sociology at the University of Paris (Sorbonne).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Harvard University Press
• Date d'édition: 1989
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0674894359
• ISBN 13: 9780674894358
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 323
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible