Suchergebnisse

ALTHOUGH TOCQUEVILLE AS THE AUTHOR OF "DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA" IS OFTEN QUOTED, THE AUTHOR QUESTIONS WHY "THE OLD REGIME AND THE REVOLUTION" IS NEITHER READ NOR QUOTED, AND WONDERS IF THE REASON IS BECAUSE IT IS POLITICAL HISTORY, AND TODAY, POLITICAL HISTORY IS NOT APPRECIATED.

It has been said of Alexis de Tocqueville that he is the most frequently quoted and least read author of all, rivaling and surpassing even William Shakespeare for this dubious honor. Virtually every American social scientist who as much as pays lip service to tradition manages to quote Tocqueville at least once. But this deference is to the author of Democracy in America, not of The Old Regime and the Revolution, for the latter book is, with the exception of one passage, neither read nor quoted. The Old Regime is neglected today because it is a political history, and today political history is not appreciated. What is "political history"?Tocqueville's "political history" belongs to a genre of which he considered Montesquieu's "Sur la grandeur et la decadence des Romains" to be the finest example. Tocqueville thought that the nature and habits of his intellect suited him to evaluating modern societies and foreseeing their probable futures, but at the same time he believed he could do this most effectively in historical studies. While flatly denying that one can learn lessons from history in any simple sense, he did nonetheless hold that from an examination of historical particulars one can grasp the universal principles of social existence. His intention in writing The Old Regime was to enable his reader to achieve this same grasp. He, like Montesquieu, would not merely recount facts, but make known their causes and consequences and judge them. He would have to choose his facts well, so that they supported his theses. He would have to present them without making "the character of the work … visible" in the hope that "the reader would be conducted naturally from one reflection to another by the interest of the narrative." Thus what I have called political history is understood by Tocqueville to be a selective, but not necessarily incorrect, use of the facts of history for the purposes of shedding light on the present and of teaching others to see and judge the present for themselves. Given Tocqueville's stated intention, we cannot read his work as either scientific history or political polemic.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976

THE QUALITY OF WESTERN LITERATURE ON SOVIET SOCIETY IN THE PRE-GORBACHEV ERA ULTIMATELY DEPENDED ON THE RESTRICTED NATURE OF THE AVAILABLE SOURCE MATERIAL. BUT BIASES AND CONTROL ALSO CHARACTERIZE THE FLOOD OF PUBLISED INFORMATION EMANATING FROM THE USSR IN THE AGE OF GLASNOST. MOREOVER, GLASNOST HIGHLIGHTS THE NEED TO ADDRESS THE NEW SOCIAL FORCES THAT HAVE EMERGED IN A SOCIETY UNDERGOING PERESTROIKA. SPECIFICALLY, SCHOLARS MUST NOW TURN TO SUCH TOPICS AS THE ROLE OF THE INTELLIGENTSIA, THE RISE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT, AND THE BURGEONING NATIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN THE USSR.

Investigates the open-field system in France in the mid-eighteenth century. Finds that institutions, most particularly the political institution of the state, supported property rights that undermined overall economic efficiency. (JLN)