Tocqueville Between Two Worlds (ebook)

Argumento de Tocqueville Between Two Worlds (ebook)

"The strength of Mr. Wolin's monograph lies in his patient, close readings of Tocqueville's major woks. . . . Wolin sets Tocqueville in a wider intellectual context by relating his thought to the philosophy of Hobbes, Locke, Marx, Nieztsche, among others. . . . He is especially concerned to argue . . . that the participatory democracy Tocqueville celebrated has become, in our postmodern times, economic despotism, or that it threatens to do so."--Thomas Pavel, Wall Street Journal

"Tocqueville Between Two Worlds . . . is always interesting and sometimes fascinating."--Alan Ryan, The New York Review of Books

"In striving to give us Tocqueville whole, and in doing so more than any one writer in English, Mr. Wolin puts us so far in his debt that any criticism seems . . . small souled."--Will Morrisey, The Washington Times

"A masterful exploration of Alexis de Tocqueville's entire oeuvre . . . Whether the vestiges of the old world could be used to moderate the fearsome potential of the new one was the problem of Tocqueville's life. Wolin helps us understand this problem and those worlds with the sophistication and subtlety of a scholar steeped in the canon of western political thought."--Johnathan O'Neill, The Times Higher Education Supplement

"Sheldon S. Wolin demonstrates how Toqueville's classic Democracy in America is also a study of aristocracy in America--a subsidiary but fascinating theme that here receives, for the first time, the loving attention it deserves."--Peregrine Worsthorne, New Statesman

"Sheldon Wolin's magisterial study of Tocqueville is the culmination of a remarkable body of work on the history of political thought, the harvest of four decades of engaged reflection.... An arresting critique of Tocqueville's theoretical trajectory, illuminated against the backdrop of his public career."--Gopal Balakrishnan, The New Left Review

"Wolin wants to make Tocqueville into a serious postmodern thinker. For Wolin, Tocqueville puts his finger on the central conflict in American life, which is between the forms of democracy and real politics."--Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

"Sheldon Wolin's Tocqueville between Two Worlds conveys a sweep of historical analysis that gives us deep insight not only into Tocqueville himself but also into the American character. The result is a work of supreme scholarship that sheds light on America's present and possible future as well as its past."---Senator Bill Bradley

"In his new interpretation of Tocqueville, Sheldon Wolin speaks with a master's voice. For him, Tocqueville's theme is the revival of the political within democracy and against the tendencies of democracy. There is no grander topic for us today, and Wolin's treatment is penetrating, thorough, and authoritative. This is a major work of political theory."--Harvey Mansfield, Harvard University

"Sheldon Wolin is perhaps the most compelling American political theorist writing in the last half of the twentieth century. Here is a new book to launch the twenty-first, one that shows us how pertinent Tocqueville remains for democrats today and why Wolin continues to inspire so many political theorists."--William E. Connolly, author of Why I Am Not a Secularist

"Sheldon Wolin has given us a study of Tocqueville worthy of its subject, the greatest interpreter of American democracy. More than a masterful account of Tocqueville's life and thought, Wolin's book is likely to be an enduring work of political theory in its own right. Drawing on Tocqueville's concern with the fate of the political, Wolin offers sobering insights into the democratic prospect in our time."--Michael Sandel, Harvard University, author of Democracy's Discontent

"This is a magisterial study, a major interpretation of Tocqueville as a political theorist. Wolin has not simply restored Tocqueville to a forgotten place of honor in the canon of political theory. He has created a new place for him, showing how deep and extensive the range of Tocqueville's considerations of democracy have been, paralleling the path of modernity itself."--Thomas Dumm, Amherst College

"One of the most interesting books in political theory published in the last few years. . . . Wolin's theoretical ambition mirrors Tocqueville's own goal of creating a new political science for a new epoch. . . . Like Tocqueville, he has the ambition to educate democratic regime in a society of individuals whose most powerful desire is to get rich and who are ready to abandon public affairs."--Aurelian Craiutu, Review of Politic

"Wolin offers a Tocqueville who is extraordinarily complex, deeply conflicted and by no means the uncritical booster of democratic possibility he is sometimes made out to be. . . . Tocqueville Between Two Worlds is as much an intellectual biography as it is a work of more abstract political thought. In Wolin's hands an appreciation of the power of Tocqueville's contributions to Western political thought is enhanced by pegging his work to his often fretful life story."--Jean Bethke Elshtain, Washington Post Book World

"[Wolin seeks to] demonstrate that what [Tocqueville] produced was a 'coherent theoretical and political project'--and one still relevant not just to American political debate, but to our understanding of democratic systems on both sides of the Atlantic.... Wolin here develops [this view] with enormous intellectual energy and flair through several hundred pages of a book which is clearly intended to be definitive."--Biancamaria Fontana, The Times Literary Supplement

"Sheldon Wolin here revisits the major themes of his influential writing. . . . The premise of this ambitious book is that one can gain a deeper sense of the challenges facing both modern and 'postmodern' politics by following Tocqueville's simultaneous attempts to create a political life and to reinvent political theory by straddling the various dichotomous worlds of Wolin's title."--Cheryl B. Welch, Political Studies

"An important and provocative masterwork, one that deserves to achieve enduring status in the years ahead."--Aristide Tessitore, Journal of Politics

"[An] ambitious and very comprehensive study. . . . This book is an unusually penetrating and stimulating guide to Tocqueville the man and theorist as well as to modern political thought generally as it might be seen if considered from a Tocquevillian point of view. It is a major contribution."--Choice

"Wolin here develops [Toqueville's philosophy] with enormous intellectual energy and flair through several hundred pages of a book which is clearly intended to be definitive."--Biancamaria Fontana, Times Literary Supplement

Honorable Mention for the 2001 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Government and Science, Association of American Publishers
Winner of the David Easton Award0ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
INTRODUCTION 3
PART ONE: THE ABUNDANCE OF POWER 11
CHAPTER I: MODERN THEORY AND MODERN POWER 13
CHAPTER II: Theoria: THE THEORETICAL JOURNEY 34
PART TWO: ENCOUNTERING THE AMAZING 57
CHAPTER III: DISCOVERING DEMOCRACY 59
CHAPTER IV: SELF AND STRUCTURE 76
CHAPTER V: DOUBT AND DISCONNECTION 102
CHAPTER VI: " . . . THE THEORY OF WHAT IS GREAT" 113
CHAPTER VII: MYTH AND POLITICAL IMPRESSIONISM 132
CHAPTER VIII: THE SPECTACLE OF AMERICA 149
PART THREE: THE THEORETICAL ENCAPSULATION OF AMERICA CHAPTER IX: SOCIAL CONTRACT VERSUS POLITICAL CULTURE 169
CHAPTER X: THE CULTURE OF THE POLITICAL: "THE RITUALS OF PRACTICE" 202
CHAPTER XI: FEUDAL AMERICA 229
CHAPTER XII: MAJORITY RULE OR MAJORITY POLITICS 241
CHAPTER XIII: CENTRALIZATION AND DISSOLUTION 260
CHAPTER XIV: THE IMAGE OF DEMOCRACY 275
PART FOUR: PERSONA AND THE POLITICS OF THEORY 287
CHAPTER XV: TRAGIC HERO, POPULAR MASK 289
CHAPTER XVI: THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF CULTURE 304
CHAPTER XVII: DEPOTISM AND UTOPIA 339
CHAPTER XVIII: OLD NEW WORLD, NEW OLD WORLD 365
CHAPTER XIX: TOCQUEVILLEAN DEMOCRACY 374
CHAPTER XX: THE PENITENTIARY TEMPTATION 383
PART FIVE: SECOND JOURNEY TO AMERICA 407
CHAPTER XXI: THE POLITICAL EDUCATION OF THE BOURGEOISIE 409 CHAPTER XXII: Souvenirs RECOLLECTIONS IN/TRANQUILLITY 428
CHAPTER XXIII: Souvenirs SOCIALISM AND THE CRISIS OF THE POLITICAL 456
CHAPTER XXIV: The Old Regime and the Revolution: Mythistoricus et theoretieus 498
CHAPTER XXV: The Old Regime: MODERNIZATION AND THE POLITICS OF LOSS 531
CHAPTER XXVI: POSTDEMOCRACY 561
NOTES 573
INDEX 641