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Tocqueville between Two Worlds: The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life by Sheldon S. Wolin

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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.

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First published January 1, 2001

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About the author

Sheldon S. Wolin

24 books103 followers
Sheldon Sanford Wolin was an American political theorist and writer on contemporary politics. A political theorist for fifty years, Wolin became Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at Princeton University, where he taught from 1973 to 1987.

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Profile Image for James Bechtel.
221 reviews5 followers
January 16, 2020
Excellent in every way. Wolin's focus is on Tocqueville's struggles with "Democracy in America." However, he does not neglect the events of Tocqueville's life and the writing of "The Ancien Regime and the Revolution." All of Wolin's points are relevant to contemporary theoretical, political, social, and economic thought.
Profile Image for Musaadalhamidi.
1,569 reviews48 followers
April 16, 2022
يتكلم هذا الكتاب عن أنه يعدّ المنظّر السياسي الأكثر نفوذاً في التاريخ الأمريكي والذي عاش أيضاً حياة استثنائية في فعاليتها وطموحها في بحر السياسة الفرنسية يقوم المؤلف شلدون اس فولن وهو واحد من أهم أساتذة التنظير السياسي في أمريكا، مستنداً إلى عقود من البحث والتفكير، بتقديم العمل الأول الذي يضطلع بمهمة المزاوجة الكاملة بين حياتَيْ توكفيل السياسية والنظرية وينجح في توفير تفسيرات وتأويلات جديدة لمؤلفات توكفيل الرئيسية كما لموقعه في تاريخ الفكر والثقافة يقول المؤلف من بداية هذا المجلد إلى نهايته حاولت تذكر ثلاثة هواجس رئيسية: حاولت، أولاً، تقديم تصور لما كان توكفيل يعنيه بالنظرية السياسية، كيف عاشها ومارسها، وكيف حاول أن يزاوج الحياة النظرية مع احتراف السياسي للسياسة: حاولت، ثانياً، معاينة تصوره للديمقراطية بوصفها مشروعاً سياسياً ونظرياً في الوقت نفسه؛ وحاولت، ثالثاً، أن أبين أن كتابات توكفيل وتحركاته كانت شديدة الاهتمام بانبثاق ما كان سيُطلق عليه فيما بعد اسم سياسة الحداثة ولقد قمت بعكس معالجاته لهذه الهواجس على “الماضي” عبر عطفها على أسلافه النظريين، ولاسيما على مونتسكيو، روسو، الأوراق الفيدرالية، ويورك؛ وبادرت إلى مقارنة أفكاره بأفكار عدد معين من معاصريه، مثل ماركس وسان سيمون.
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