Tocqueville between two worlds [[electronic resource] ] : the making of a political and theoretical life / / Sheldon S. Wolin

• Autore: Wolin Sheldon S
• Pubblicazione: Princeton, NJ, : Princeton University Press, [2003]
• Edizione: Core Textbook
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (659 p.)
• Disciplina: 320.092
• Soggetto topico: State, The
• Soggetto genere / forma: Electronic books.
• Note generali: Originally published: 2001.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART ONE. The Abundance of Power -- Chapter I: Modern Theory and Modern Power -- Chapter II: Theoria: The Theoretical Journey -- PART TWO. Encountering the Amazing -- Chapter III: Discovering Democracy -- Chapter IV: Self and Structure -- Chapter V: Doubt and Disconnection -- Chapter VI: " . . . the theory of what is great" -- Chapter VII: Myth and Political Impressionism -- Chapter VIII: The Spectacle of America -- PART THREE. The Theoretical Encapsulation of America -- Chapter IX: Social Contract versus Political Culture -- Chapter X: The Culture of the Political: "the rituals of practice" -- Chapter XI: Feudal America -- Chapter XII: Majority Rule or Majority Politics -- Chapter XIII: Centralization and Dissolution -- Chapter XIV: The Image of Democracy -- PART FOUR. Persona and the Politics of Theory -- Chapter XV: Tragic Hero, Popular Mask -- Chapter XVI: The Democratization of Culture -- Chapter XVII: Despotism and Utopia -- Chapter XVIII: Old New World, New Old World -- Chapter XIX: Tocquevillean Democracy -- Chapter XX: The Penitentiary Temptation -- PART FIVE. Second Journey to America -- Chapter XXI: The Political Education of the Bourgeoisie -- Chapter XXII: Souvenirs: Recollections In/Tranquillity -- Chapter XXIII: Souvenirs: Socialism and the Crisis of the Political -- Chapter XXIV: The Old Regime and the Revolution: Mythistoricus et theoreticus -- Chapter XXV: The Old Regime: Modernization and the Politics of Loss -- Chapter XXVI: Postdemocracy -- Notes -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: 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.
• Titolo autorizzato: Tocqueville between two worlds
• ISBN: 1-282-08750-9; 9786612087509; 1-4008-2479-6
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910455146203321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II