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Tocqueville, Democracy and Social Reform by M. Drolet Pdf
Alexis de Tocqueville is best known as the author of Democracy in America and The Ancien Régime and the Revolution . Yet among his contemporaries he was also esteemed for his brilliant investigations on social issues such as prison reform, pauperism and the plight of abandoned children. This study explores the intellectual and social context of these neglected yet startlingly innovative writings and it reveals how they proved central to the composition of those works for which Tocqueville is best known.
Alexis de Tocqueville has been extensively chronicled as a pioneer sociologist and political philosopher of democracy during the early nineteenth century. However, his writings on the problems of social and economic transitions to an industrial society have been largely overlooked. In this book, Seymour Drescher presents a thorough analysis of Tocqueville's concern for the lower classes of society, viewing his thoughts on slavery, poverty, criminality, and working class conditions, and their place in an evolving egalitarian society.
Alexis de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat paradoxically famous for his insights into democracy and equality, is one of history’s greatest analysts of American society and politics. His contributions to political theory and sociology are of enduring significance. This book, from one of the world’s leading experts, is a clearly written and accessible introduction to Tocqueville’s social and political theories. Schleifer guides readers through his two major works, Democracy in America (1835/40) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856), as well as his working papers, correspondence, and other writings. Schleifer examines Tocqueville’s essential themes and explores the various meanings of his key terms, including equality, democracy, liberty, and revolution. He combines a skillful exposition of Tocqueville’s analysis of the beneficial and harmful consequences of democracy with a crystal clear discussion of his often overlooked economic ideas and social reform proposals. Schleifer traces both the overall unity and the significant changes in Tocqueville’s ideas, demonstrating the complexity and subtlety of his thought and the importance of his legacy. It will be essential reading for all scholars, students, and general readers interested in the history of political thought, political theory, American politics, and sociology.
Exploring the Social and Political Economy of Alexis de Tocqueville by Peter J. Boettke,Adam Martin Pdf
Alexis de Tocqueville’s work touched upon an exceptionally broad range of social scientific disciplines, from economics to religion, and from education to international affairs. His work consistently appeals to scholars dismayed by existing disciplinary silos. Tocqueville is also well-regarded for diagnosing both the promise and perils of democratic life. Consideration of his ideas provokes serious consideration of and engagement with contemporary trends as citizens in democratic countries cope with challenges posed by new technological, cultural, and political changes. However, attention to Tocqueville is uneven across disciplines, with political theorists paying him the most heed and economists the least. This volume focuses on political economy, trying to bridge this divide. This book collects essays by emerging scholars from a variety of disciplines—political science, economics, sociology, philosophy, and social thought—to examine Tocqueville’s thoughts on political and social economy and its contemporary relevance. The book is divided into two halves. The first half engages with the main currents of research on Tocqueville’s own thoughts regarding economic institutions, constitutionalism, liberalism, history, and education. The second half applies Tocqueville’s insights to diverse contemporary topics including international relations, citizenship, mass incarceration, and pedagogy. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students interested in Tocqueville, the history of political thought, and a variety of current policy issues.
De La Démocratie en Amérique published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840) is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. Its title translates as On Democracy in America, but English translations are usually simply entitled Democracy in America. In the book, Tocqueville examines the democratic revolution that he believed had been occurring over the previous several hundred yearsHe begins his book by describing the change in social conditions taking place. He observed that over the previous seven hundred years the social and economic conditions of men had become more equal. The aristocracy, Tocqueville believed, was gradually disappearing as the modern world experienced the beneficial effects of equality. Tocqueville traced the development of equality to a number of factors, such as granting all men permission to enter the clergy, widespread economic opportunity resulting from the growth of trade and commerce, the royal sale of titles of nobility as a monarchical fundraising tool, and the abolition of primogeniture.Tocqueville described this revolution as a "providential fact"[5] of an "irresistible revolution," leading some to criticize the determinism found in the book. However, based on Tocqueville's correspondences with friends and colleagues, Marvin Zetterbaum, Professor Emeritus at University of California Davis, concludes that the Frenchman never accepted democracy as determined or inevitable. He did, however, consider equality more just and therefore found himself among its partisans.
In Democracy in America, Tocqueville examines the democratic revolution that he believed had been occurring over the past seven hundred years. Tocqueville begins his book by describing the change in social conditions taking place. The aristocracy, Tocqueville believed, was gradually disappearing as the modern world experienced the beneficial effects of equality. Tocqueville traced the development of equality to a number of factors, such as granting all men permission to enter the clergy, widespread economic opportunity resulting from the growth of trade and commerce. This Classic Timeless Study on Democracy as it pertains to American Society is consider essential reading by all students of American History and the Democratic Political System of Government.
Tocqueville: A Very Short Introduction by Harvey C. Mansfield Pdf
No one has ever described American democracy with more accurate insight or more profoundly than Alexis de Tocqueville. After meeting with Americans on extensive travels in the United States, and intense study of documents and authorities, he authored the landmark Democracy in America, publishing its two volumes in 1835 and 1840. Ever since, this book has been the best source for every serious attempt to understand America and democracy itself. Yet Tocqueville himself remains a mystery behind the elegance of his style. Now one of our leading authorities on Tocqueville explains him in this splendid new entry in Oxford's acclaimed Very Short Introduction series. Harvey Mansfield addresses his subject as a thinker, clearly and incisively exploring Tocqueville's writings--not only his masterpiece, but also his secret Recollections, intended for posterity alone, and his unfinished work on his native France, The Old Regime and the Revolution. Tocqueville was a liberal, Mansfield writes, but not of the usual sort. The many elements of his life found expression in his thought: his aristocratic ancestry, his ventures in politics, his voyages abroad, his hopes and fears for America, and his disappointment with France. All his writings show a passion for political liberty and insistence on human greatness. Perhaps most important, he saw liberty not in theories, but in the practice of self-government in America. Ever an opponent of abstraction, he offered an analysis that forces us to consider what we actually do in our politics--suggesting that theory itself may be an enemy of freedom. And that, Mansfield writes, makes him a vitally important thinker for today. Translator of an authoritative edition of Democracy in America, Harvey Mansfield here offers the fruit of decades of research and reflection in a clear, insightful, and marvelously compact introduction.
This study envisions Tocqueville as a political man, and a politically committed one, rather than as an omniscient and solitary prophet of the age of the masses. A historical account of one of the essential liberals of the nineteenth century cannot ignore the fact that Tocqueville's views of both the present and the future were formulated in terms of the outlook of his own generation and class. The British Isles were the source of some of Tocqueville's most significant insights, especially of the historic connection between the rise of democracy and the extension of bureaucratic centralization. They furnished him with two examples from which he eventually drew a theory of the evolution of aristocracies. They gave him a comparative basis for a theory of the relation of ideas to social change, of the causes of and antidotes to revolutions. His ideas on institutional and economic reform and on the ingredients of a great foreign policy bore the English trademark. If at times he protested against a lifeless imitation of an insolent rival, more often than not what the rival was doing became the basis for his own solutions to French problems. Finally, England provided Tocqueville with a refuge from the intellectual and political isolation of his last years. He found there, not only the consensus which was necessary for him to grasp his own reality and purpose, but the opportunity to continue to influence the course of events, however diminished his range. At the end of his life England was his second homeland, and assumed the prime place in his vision of the history of human liberty. A discussion of Tocqueville's intellectual relationship with his lifelong friend, Gustave de Beaumont, is indispensable to this study. Tocqueville brought to their common fund of ideas a wealth of insight which justly claims greater scholarly attention, but it was Beaumont who, after their journey to England and Ireland in 1835, attempted an extended study of the British constitution, while the ideas of his traveling companion remained in undigested notes. Despite the fact that the inseparability of their ideas on democracy was recognized a generation ago, the unity of their careers and ideas after the appearance of their books on America here receives due analysis for the first time.
The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America by James T. Schleifer Pdf
It is impossible fully to understand the American experience apart from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Moreover, it is impossible fully to appreciate Tocqueville by assuming that he brought to his visitation to America, or to the writing of his great work, a fixed philosophical doctrine. James T. Schleifer documents where, when, and under what influences Tocqueville wrote different sections of his work. In doing so, Schleifer discloses the mental processes through which Tocqueville passed in reflecting on his experiences in America and transforming these reflections into the most original and revealing book ever written about Americans. For the first time the evolution of a number of Tocqueville's central themes--democracy, individualism, centralization, despotism--emerges into clear relief. As Russell B. Nye has observed, "Schleifer's study is a model of intellectual history, an account of the intertwining of a man, a set of ideas, and the final product, a book." The Liberty Fund second edition includes a new preface by the author and an epilogue, "The Problem of the Two Democracies." James T. Schleifer is Professor of History and Director of the Gill Library at the College of New Rochelle
Conversations with Tocqueville by Aurelian Craiutu,Sheldon Gellar Pdf
The questions and issues raised by Tocqueville in his monumental studies of France and America are just as crucial for understanding the evolution of democracy in the West and the development of democracy in the non-western world. They clearly show the breadth of Tocqueville's contributions to the development of modern social sciences. Among the questions addressed by Tocqueville were: How does the weight of the past affect the evolution of political institutions and political behavior? What impact do differences in physical environment have on the organization of society? What are the relationships between social equality, freedom, and democracy? To what extent does centralization destroy the capacity for local initiative and self-governance? What conditions are needed to nurture the flourishing of self-governing communities? What safeguards are needed to preserve freedom and to prevent incipient democracies from becoming dictatorships? Why has democracy had such a problem taking hold in many parts of the non-western world? How should one study democracy in non-western settings? Tocquevillian analytics can help us provide answers. Addressed to a wider audience than Tocqueville scholars, the book argues that Tocquevillian analytics can be used to understand developments in non-western as well as western societies and be updated to address such issues as globalization, ethnicity, New World-Old World comparisons, and East-West dynamics. The first part of the book examines the basic components of Tocquevillian analytics, outlining its stepwise, interdisciplinary approach to understanding societies and nations. The second part applies the Tocquevillian conceptual framework to the contemporary world and contains individual chapters on various regions of the worldDNorth America, Russia, Western Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Unlike previous collective works on Tocqueville,Conversations with Tocqueville does not offer a survey of the authors' views, but instead focuses on presenting a cohesive theoretical framework of analysis that can then be applied and adjusted to fit a multitude of settings.
Tocqueville’s Moderate Penal Reform by Emily Katherine Ferkaluk Pdf
This book presents an interpretive analysis of the major themes and purpose of Alexis de Tocqueville’s and Gustave de Beaumont’s first work, On the Penitentiary System, thereby offering new insights into Tocqueville as a moderate liberal statesman. The book explores Tocqueville’s thinking on penitentiaries as the best possible solution to recidivism, his approach to colonial imperialism, and his arguments on moral reformation of prisoners through a close reading of Tocqueville’s first published text. The unifying political concept of all three discussions is Tocqueville’s underlying concern to pursue moderation between institutional and imaginative extremes in order to maintain liberal values. In both thinking moderately and advocating for moderate political action, Tocqueville’s On the Penitentiary System renews an emphasis on the importance of civic engagement and the balance between philosophy and praxis.
