Tocqueville’s Defense of Human Liberty, ed. Peter Lawler and Joseph Alulis (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993)

Excerpt:

Tocqueville seems to be the authority in our time for those who see the inadequacy of both bourgeois and socialist life for human beings.  Hence he inspires those who oppose the misanthropic reductionism of apolitical theory of every sort.  Each of the authors of the eighteen chapters in this book opposes this reductionism with a theoretical appreciation for the distinctiveness of human liberty.  Whatever their differences, and there are many, they all admire Tocqueville because each of them see the greatness in his defense of that liberty.

The chapters have been divided into three parts of six.  This division makes some sense, but it is also fairly arbitrary.  WE hope that you will not take it too seriously.  We hope, instead, that you will notice how each essay relates to many of the others.  Our authors disagree, most obviously, on the distinctiveness and the adequacy of Tocqueville’s defense of human liberty.

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