In the shade of Tocqueville
Item
-
Title
-
In the shade of Tocqueville
-
Identifier
-
d_2009_2013:7675ddce3226:11025
-
identifier
-
11289
-
Creator
-
Gordon, Sheryl,
-
Contributor
-
Richard Wolin
-
Date
-
2011
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Modern history | European history | American history | America | Cold War | democracy | intellectual | reception | Tocqueville
-
Abstract
-
This dissertation examines the reception of Alexis de Tocqueville by American and European intellectuals who worked and lived in America during the 1940s and 1950s. The intellectuals featured in the dissertation include David Riesman, Louis Hartz, Hannah Arendt, and Leo Strauss. I analyze their personal correspondence and seminal scholarly works, each of which has helped promote different images of Tocqueville. Re-evaluating the Tocquevillean aspects of these influential works, such as The Lonely Crowd, The Liberal Tradition in America, Origins of Totalitarianism , and Natural Right and History, sheds new light on the authors' true understanding of Tocqueville and deep appreciation of his ideas. I also examine the use of Tocqueville by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Council Against Communist Aggression, and F.A. Hayek to understand how Tocqueville became the anti-Marx during the fifties. I argue that Tocqueville's ideas played an important role in shaping the thoughts and views of all of these intellectuals during this important period after the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War. Concerned with the flaws of a democratic society that promoted equality and liberty, they found in Tocqueville the ways to fix them, and, ultimately, hope.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
2009_2013.csv
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
-
Program
-
History
