Against the masses: varieties of anti-democratic thought since the French Revolution
Given the almost universal assumption that democracy is a 'good thing', the goal of mankind, it is easy to forget that 'rule by the people' has been vehemently opposed by some of the most distinguished thinkers in the Western tradition. The author attempts to combat collective amnesia by systematically exploring and evaluating anti-democratic thought since the French Revolution. Using categories first introduced by A. O. Hirschman in The Rhetoric of Reaction, Femia examines thevarious arguments under the headings of 'perversity', 'futility', and 'jeopardy'. This classification scheme enables h