More Than Kings and Less Than Men
eBook - ePub

More Than Kings and Less Than Men

Tocqueville on the Promise and Perils of Democratic Individualism

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

More Than Kings and Less Than Men

Tocqueville on the Promise and Perils of Democratic Individualism

About this book

More than Kings and Less than Men: Tocqueville on the Promises and Perils of Democratic Induvidualism examines Alexis de Tocqueville's hopes and fears for modern democracy, arguing that the distinctive political philosophy informing Democracy in America can help us to think more profoundly about the problems facing liberal democratic society today. L. Joseph Hebert, Jr. argues that Tocqueville saw the historical power of democracy as originating in its promise to liberate human nature, and the greatness it is capable of achieving, from the artificial constraints of conventional hierarchy. He probes Tocqueville's fear that the momentum of democratic change may violate that promise by neglecting or even stifling human greatness in the name of an artificial equality of conditions. Hebert explains why Tocqueville saw the need for a "new political science" to regulate democracy, and why Tocqueville thought that the central task of this science, supported by enlightened statesmanship, was to combat "individualism," an extreme form of civic, moral, and intellectual apathy capable of ushering in a historically unprecedented form of despotism. Hebert looks in depth at the principles of Tocqueville's political science, their relation to classical, modern, and contemporary political thought, and their practical applications in his time and ours. He outlines the model Tocqueville recommended for a free and flourishing modern democratic order and analyzes the primary mechanisms Tocqueville proposed for avoiding the perils and securing the promise of democracy in his own day. Hebert observes that many of Tocqueville's fears regarding individualism are occurring today, and analyzes how Tocqueville's insights might be applied to combat individualism and promote genuine liberty in our own time.

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Yes, you can access More Than Kings and Less Than Men by L. Joseph Hebert Jr. in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & Political Philosophy. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half title
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Introduction: Why Tocqueville? Why Individualism?
  9. Part I More than Kings: The Rise of Democratic Individualism
  10. Part II Less than Men? Combating Individualism in Jacksonian America and Beyond
  11. Conclusion: Liberty and the Recovery of Human Greatness
  12. References
  13. Index
  14. About the Author