The Aristocratic Sources of Liberty
E-Book, Englisch, 360 Seiten, EPUB
ISBN: 978-1-4008-4672-6
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
Many American readers like to regard Alexis de Tocqueville as an honorary American and democrat—as the young French aristocrat who came to early America and, enthralled by what he saw, proceeded to write an American book explaining democratic America to itself. Yet, as Lucien Jaume argues in this acclaimed intellectual biography, Democracy in America is best understood as a French book, written primarily for the French, and overwhelmingly concerned with France. "America," Jaume says, "was merely a pretext for studying modern society and the woes of France." For Tocqueville, in short, America was a mirror for France, a way for Tocqueville to write indirectly about his own society, to engage French thinkers and debates, and to come to terms with France's aristocratic legacy.
By taking seriously the idea that Tocqueville's French context is essential for understanding Democracy in America, Jaume provides a powerful and surprising new interpretation of Tocqueville's book as well as a fresh intellectual and psychological portrait of the author. Situating Tocqueville in the context of the crisis of authority in postrevolutionary France, Jaume shows that Tocqueville was an ambivalent promoter of democracy, a man who tried to reconcile himself to the coming wave, but who was also nostalgic for the aristocratic world in which he was rooted—and who believed that it would be necessary to preserve aristocratic values in order to protect liberty under democracy. Indeed, Jaume argues that one of Tocqueville's most important and original ideas was to recognize that democracy posed the threat of a new and hidden form of despotism.
Fachgebiete
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
- Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Philosophie: Allgemeines, Methoden
- Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
- Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte
- Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
Weitere Infos & Material
Introduction 1
PART ONE. WHAT DID TOCQUEVILLE MEAN BY "DEMOCRACY"? 15
1. Attacking the French Tradition: Popular Sovereignty Redefined in and through Local Liberties 21
2. Democracy as Modern Religion 65
3. Democracy as Expectation of Material Pleasures 82
PART TWO. TOCQUEVILLE AS SOCIOLOGIST 95
4. In the Tradition of Montesquieu: The State-Society Analogy 101
5. Counterrevolutionary Traditionalism: A Muffled Polemic 106
6. The Discovery of the Collective 115
7. Tocqueville and the Protestantism of His Time: The
Insistent Reality of the Collective 129
PART THREE. TOCQUEVILLE AS MORALIST 145
8. The Moralist and the Question of l'Honnête 147
9. Tocqueville's Relation to Jansenism 159
PART FOUR. TOCQUEVILLE IN LITERATURE: DEMOCRATIC LANGUAGE WITHOUT DECLARED AUTHORITY 193
10. Resisting the Democratic Tendencies of Language 199
11. Tocqueville in the Debate about Literature and Society 226
PART FIVE: THE GREAT CONTEMPORARIES: MODELS AND COUNTERMODELS 249
12. Tocqueville and Guizot: Two Conceptions of Authority 251
13. Tutelary Figures from Malesherbes to Chateaubriand 291
Conclusion 319
Appendix 1. The Use of Anthologies and Summaries in Tocqueville's Time 327
Appendix 2. Silvestre de Sacy, Review of Democracy in America 328
Appendix 3. Letter from Alexis de Tocqueville to Silvestre de Sacy 335
Index 337
