To the extent that we worry about the future, we tend to do so with the apprehension that something may go terribly wrong. Nietzsche and Tocqueville on the Democratization of Humanity is animated more by the apprehension, what if everything should go terribly right? That foreboding indelibly colored the outlook of Friedrich Nietzsche and Alexis de Tocqueville—two thinkers seldom paired. As David A. Eisenberg argues, each in his own way envisaged the terminus toward which modernity speeds. Examining their thought allows us not only to glimpse the future that filled them with dread, but to survey a road that stretches back millennia to Athens and Jerusalem, when ideas about the primacy of reason and inborn equality of souls took root. Armed with such revolutionary teachings, a particular human type, namely the democratic, gained ascendancy. The reign of this human type portends to be so total that all other human types will be precluded in the democratic future, so that what mankind's democratization augurs is not the diversification of the species but its homogenization. The questions raised in Nietzsche and Tocqueville on the Democratization of Humanity are intended to broaden the horizons that history's democratizing forces conspire to contract.

Nietzsche scholars have long been divided over whether Nietzsche is an aristocratic or a democratic thinker. Nietzche's Culture of Humanity overcomes this debate by proving both sides wrong. Jeffrey Church argues that in his early period writings, Nietzsche envisioned a cultural meritocracy that drew on the classical German tradition of Kant and Herder. The young Nietzsche's 'culture of humanity' synthesized the high and low, the genius and the people, the nation and humanity. Nietzsche's early ideal of culture can shed light on his mature period thought, since, Church argues, Nietzsche does not abandon this fundamental commitment to a cultural meritocracy. Nietzche's Culture of Humanity argues that Nietzsche's novel defense of culture can overcome some persisting problems in contemporary liberal theories of culture. As such, this book should interest Nietzsche scholars, political theorists and philosophers interested in modern thought, as well as contemporary thinkers concerned with the politics of culture.

In this fresh interpretation of Tocqueville's thought, Joshua Mitchell explores the dynamic interplay between religion and politics in American democracy. Focusing on Democracy in America, The Fragility of Freedom examines Tocqueville's key works and argues that his analysis of democracy is ultimately rooted in an Augustinian view of human psychology. As much a work of political philosophy as of religion, The Fragility of Freedom argues for the importance of a political theology that recognizes moderation. "An intelligent and sharply drawn portrait of a conservative Toqueville."—Anne C. Rose, Journal of American History "I recommend this book as one of a very few to approach seriously the sources of Tocqueville's intellectual and moral greatness."—Peter Augustine Lawler, Journal of Politics "Mitchell ably places Democracy in America in the long conversation of Western political and theological thought."—Wilfred M. McClay, First Things "Learned and thought-provoking."—Peter Berkowitz, New Republic

Apolitical, amoral, an aesthete whose writings point toward some form of liberation: this is the figure who emerges from most recent scholarship on Friedrich Nietzsche. The Nietzsche whom Fredrick Appel portrays is of an altogether different character, one whose philosophical position is inseparable from a deep commitment to a hierarchical politics. Nietzsche contra Democracy gives us a thinker who, disdainful of the "petty politics" of his time, attempts to lay the normative foundations for a modern political alternative to democracy. Appel shows how Nietzsche's writings evoke the prospect of a culturally revitalized Europe in which the herdlike majority and its values are put in their proper place: under the control of a new, self-aware, and thoroughly modern aristocratic caste whose sole concern is its own flourishing. In chapters devoted to Nietzsche's little discussed views on solitude, friendship, sociability, families, and breeding, this book brings Nietzsche into conversation with Aristotelian and Stoic strains of thought. More than a healthy jolt to Nietzsche scholarship, Nietzsche contra Democracy also challenges political theory to articulate and defend the moral consensus undergirding democracy.

One of France's leading and most controversial political thinkers explores the central themes of Tocqueville's writings: the democratic revolution and the modern passion for equality. What becomes of people when they are overcome by this passion and how does it transform the contents of life? Pierre Manent's analysis concludes that the growth of state power and the homogenization of society are two primary consequences of equalizing conditions. The author shows the contemporary relevance of Tocqueville's teaching: to love democracy well, one must love it moderately. Manent examines the prophetic nature of Tocqueville's writings with breadth, clarity, and depth. His findings are both timely and highly relevant as people in Eastern Europe and around the world are grappling with the fragile, complicated, and frequently contradictory nature of democracy. This book is essential reading for students and scholars of political theory and political philosophy, as well as general readers interested in the nature of modern democracy.

"A ground-breaking study of the views of the greatest theorist of democracy writing about one of our most pressing issues. Alan S. Kahan, a leading Tocqueville scholar, shows how Tocqueville's analysis of religion is simultaneously deeply rooted in his thoughts on nineteenth-century France and America and pertinent to us today"--Back cover.