Complications - Communism and the Dilemmas of Democracy

Informationen zum Autor Claude Lefort. Translated by Julian Bourg and with a Foreword by Dick Howard Klappentext Complications: Communism and the Dilemmas of Democracy ties together the central concerns of the work of Claude Lefort over the past half-century. A pivotal figure in French thought! Lefort studied under Maurice Merleau-Ponty! cofounded with Cornelius Castoriadis the influential journal Socialisme ou Barbarie! and famously engaged in a heated debate with Jean-Paul Sartre over the Soviet Union and Communist parties in the West. He has influenced generations of political thinkers and throughout his career has offered invaluable leftist! non-communist critiques of both liberalism and Communism. It is the prevailing belief that the death of communism was a victory for liberal democracy. In Complications! however! Lefort challenges this interpretation and provides new ways of understanding the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and the Communist phenomenon. Lefort engages the work of prominent historians Martin Malia and François Furet and shows how their emphasis on "illusion" and ideology led to their failure to understand the logic and workings of the Communist Party! and its impact on Soviet society! and the reasons why so many in the West had Communist sympathies. He also maintains that those who regard the end of Communism as the triumph of markets and "freedom" restrict the scope of democratic thought and the possibility of greater social equality. Lefort contends that Communism must be seen as part of a larger history of modernity and believes that the diagnosis of its death is dangerous to the future of democracy. In the tradition of Hannah Arendt and Raymond Aron! Lefort complicates the pieties of historical understanding and offers a new approach to thinking about totalitarianism and a more vital democracy. Zusammenfassung Presents fresh ways of understanding the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and the Communist phenomenon. This book engages the work of prominent historians Martin Malia and Francois Furet and shows how their emphasis on 'illusion' and ideology led to their failure to understand the logic and workings of the Communist Party. Inhaltsverzeichnis Foreword by Dick HowardAcknowledgmentsTranslator's Introduction by Julian BourgAuthor's Introduction1. Wisdom of the Historian2. Critique of "Couch Liberalism"3. Autopsy of an Illusion4. Marx's False Paternity5. The Idea of Revolution and the Revolutionary Phenomenon6. The Jacobin Phantom7. A Liberal Matrix for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat?8. Democracy and Totalitarianism9. The Myth of the Soviet Union in the West10. The French Communist Party After World War II11. Utopia and Tragedy12. The Political and the Social13. An Intentional Movement14. The Party Above All15. Disincorporation and Reincorporation of Power16. Hannah Arendt on the Law of Movement and Ideology17. The Perversion of the Law18. The Fabrication of the Social19. Voluntary Servitude20. Impossible Reform21. Planning and Social Division22. Psychologism and Moralism at Fault23. Communism and the Constitution of the World-SpaceNotesIndex ...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Claude Lefort
• Con la collaborazione di: Julian Bourg (Traduzione), Julian (Boston University) Bourg (Traduzione)
• Editore: Columbia University Press
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Copertina rigida
• Pubblicazione: 05.06.2007
• EAN: 9780231133005
• ISBN: 978-0-231-13300-5
• Pagine: 256
• Serie: Columbia Studies in Political Thought / Political History; Columbia Studies in Political; Columbia Studies in Political Thought / Political History; Columbia Studies in Political
• Categoria: Scienze umane, arte, musica > Storia > Storia dei paesi e delle regioni