Complications
Communism and the Dilemmas of Democracy
Will be published approx. on 5. June 2007
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-0-231-13300-5 (ISBN)
Description
"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 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, 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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
Anyone with any interest in understanding the rise and fall of communism in the 20th century will find this book immensely stimulating. -- Paul Anderson Tribune Magazine A work of extreme lucidity that eludes academic fashion or disciplinary classification. -- Constantin Iordachi, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary Slavic Review An important book that forces us to rethink a fundamental question of the twentieth century -- Martin Dimitrov Journal of Cold War StarsMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
482 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-231-13300-5 (9780231133005)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Claude Lefort is the director of studies emeritus at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales. He is the author of Writing: The Political Test, Democracy and Political Theory, and Political Forms of Modern Society, among other works. Julian Bourg is assistant professor of history at Bucknell University. He is the editor of After the Deluge: New Perspectives on the Intellectual and Cultural History of Postwar France and the author of From Revolution to Ethics: May 1968 and Contemporary French Thought. Dick Howard is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Among his books are The Marxian Legacy (2nd ed.), The Birth of American Political Thought, From Marx to Kant (2nd ed.), and Political Judgments. Claude Lefort is the Director of Studies Emeritus in the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales and a leading political philosopher in France. He is the author of many works including Democracy and Political Theory (University of Minnesota Press, 1989) and The Political Forms of Modern Society (MIT Press, 1986). Julian Bourg (Ph.D, University of California, Berkeley, 2001) is assistant professor of history at Bucknell University.
Content
Foreword by Dick Howard Acknowledgments Translator's Introduction by Julian Bourg Author's Introduction 1. Wisdom of the Historian 2. Critique of "Couch Liberalism" 3. Autopsy of an Illusion 4. Marx's False Paternity 5. The Idea of Revolution and the Revolutionary Phenomenon 6. The Jacobin Phantom 7. A Liberal Matrix for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat? 8. Democracy and Totalitarianism 9. The Myth of the Soviet Union in the West 10. The French Communist Party After World War II 11. Utopia and Tragedy 12. The Political and the Social 13. An Intentional Movement 14. The Party Above All 15. Disincorporation and Reincorporation of Power 16. Hannah Arendt on the Law of Movement and Ideology 17. The Perversion of the Law 18. The Fabrication of the Social 19. Voluntary Servitude 20. Impossible Reform 21. Planning and Social Division 22. Psychologism and Moralism at Fault 23. Communism and the Constitution of the World-Space Notes Index