Tocqueville's Road Map: Methodology, Liberalism, Revolution, and Despotism - Paperback

by Roger Boesche (Author)

One of the country's foremost Tocqueville scholars, Roger Boesche has gathered together his writings on Tocqueville from the last quarter century. These essays focus on specific aspects of Tocqueville's political thought: the methodology that Tocqueville brought to his historical and political writings allowing him to predict so well; his assumptions about what constitutes a revolution; his conviction that democracy and commerce at times work against each other; why Tocqueville's thought defies our modern political classifications; his fear of a qualitatively new kind of despotism; and Tocqueville's predictions for the future compared to those of Nietzsche, Arendt, and others. Tocqueville's Road Map is a long overdue addition to Tocqueville scholarship that will find an audience amongst scholars of political thought and history.

Author Biography

Roger Boesche is professor of politics and Arthur G. Coons Distinguished Professor of the History of Ideas at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He is the editor of Alexis de Tocqueville: Selected Letters on Politics and Society and author of The Strange Liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville.