Tocqueville Between Two Worlds: The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life [Hardcover]

Sheldon S. Wolin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2001

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 work one of America's most important contemporary theorists draws on decades of research and thought to present a work that fully connects Tocqueville's political and theoretical lives. In doing so, Sheldon Wolin presents 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 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Best known for his groundbreaking study Politics and Vision (1960), Wolin has been an influential political philosopher for over 40 years. In this massive masterwork, he examines the "theoretical journey" of Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the indispensable Democracy in America (1835-39). For Wolin, the importance of Tocqueville's classic work is that it marked the first time democracy was the central focus of a political theory, and it also served as an early link between liberalism and democracy. Wolin concentrates on Tocqueville's active political life, including his experiences with the conflicting political movements in Europe and his efforts to import the vibrant nature of American politics to France. He also analyzes the political meaning of Tocqueville's lesser-known writings, Souveniers (1893) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). He is well steeped in the history of political theory, and the book is generously documented with over 60 pages of notes. By writing this biography of "political and theoretical choices made over time," Wolin has effectively written the history of modern political theory. Like Democracy in America, this is a work that will endure and be studied by future generations of scholars. Highly recommended for academic libraries. Thomas A. Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

His promised work on Alexis de Tocqueville has been much anticipated, and it doesn¹t disappoint. -- Jean Bethke Elstain, Washington Post Book World

This ambitious book . . . [follows] Tocqueville's simultaneous attempts to create a political life and to reinvent political theory. -- Cheryl B. Welch, Political Studies

Tocqueville puts [Wolin's] finger on the central conflict in American life... between the forms of democracy and real politics. -- The New Yorker

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 680 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (September 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691074364
• ISBN-13: 978-0691074368
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #733,059 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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