St Petersburg Dialogues

St Petersburg Dialogues PDF Author: Joseph de Maistre
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773563806
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Written and set on the banks of the Neva, St Petersburg Dialogues is a startlingly relevant analysis of the human prospect in the twenty-first century. As the literary critic George Steiner has remarked, "the age of the Gulag and of Auschwitz, of famine and ubiquitous torture ... nuclear threat, the ecological laying waste of our planet, the leap of endemic, possibly pandemic, illness out of the very matrix of libertarian progress" is exactly what Joseph de Maistre foretold. In the Dialogues Maistre addressed a number of topics that are discussed briefly or not at all in his other works already available in English. These include an apologetic for traditional Christian beliefs about providence, reflections on the social role of the public executioner and the "divinity" of war, a critique of John Locke's sensationalist psychology, meditations on prayer and sacrifice, and a mini-course on "illuminism." The literary form is that of the "philosophical conversation" – one that allowed Maistre to be deliberately provocative and to indulge his taste for paradox, a "methodical extravagance" that he judged particularly appropriate for the eighteenth-century salon. Translator and editor Richard Lebrun provides a full scholarly edition of this classic work, complete with an introduction, chronology, critical bibliography, and generous explanatory notes. The Dialogues will be of interest to scholars of literary history as well as the history of ideas.

St Petersburg Dialogues

St Petersburg Dialogues PDF Author: Joseph de Maistre
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773563806
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Written and set on the banks of the Neva, St Petersburg Dialogues is a startlingly relevant analysis of the human prospect in the twenty-first century. As the literary critic George Steiner has remarked, "the age of the Gulag and of Auschwitz, of famine and ubiquitous torture ... nuclear threat, the ecological laying waste of our planet, the leap of endemic, possibly pandemic, illness out of the very matrix of libertarian progress" is exactly what Joseph de Maistre foretold. In the Dialogues Maistre addressed a number of topics that are discussed briefly or not at all in his other works already available in English. These include an apologetic for traditional Christian beliefs about providence, reflections on the social role of the public executioner and the "divinity" of war, a critique of John Locke's sensationalist psychology, meditations on prayer and sacrifice, and a mini-course on "illuminism." The literary form is that of the "philosophical conversation" – one that allowed Maistre to be deliberately provocative and to indulge his taste for paradox, a "methodical extravagance" that he judged particularly appropriate for the eighteenth-century salon. Translator and editor Richard Lebrun provides a full scholarly edition of this classic work, complete with an introduction, chronology, critical bibliography, and generous explanatory notes. The Dialogues will be of interest to scholars of literary history as well as the history of ideas.

More Moderate Side of Joseph de Maistre

More Moderate Side of Joseph de Maistre PDF Author: Cara Camcastle
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773529762
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The More Moderate Side of Joseph de Maistre expertly contextualizes his work within the historical events and intellectual debates that emerged in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Camcastle sheds new light on Maistre's conception of government as being made up of groups in dynamic counterbalance and on the system of inconvertible paper money that he developed a century before a similar system was universally adopted in the twentieth century. Camcastle provides a more complete and balanced picture of Maistre's political writings through original interpretations of his published works and translations from French and Italian into English of previously unpublished writings that substantiate key points.

Joseph de Maistre

Joseph de Maistre PDF Author: Richard Lebrun
Publisher: Kingston, Ont. : McGill-Queen's University Press
ISBN: 9780773506459
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Joseph de Maistre is the first full biography in English of one of the founders of conservatism, and the first to have benefited from access to the family archives. Richard Lebrun shows that understanding the dynamics of Maistre's political evolution contributes not only to our knowledge of Continental conservatism as it emerged from the crucible of the French Revolution but also to a better understanding of the roots of modem conservatism. Even in France, where his stature as a great stylist generally has been acknowledged, Maistre is often dismissed with a brief remark about his scandalous comments on bloodshed and war. Lebrun argues that this dismissal is unwarranted: study of Maistre's life and thought is worthwhile in itself and provides useful insights into the factors that encourage the formulation and acceptance of conservatism or reactionary ideologies. Lebrun shows how Maistre became a renowned defender of throne and altar by detailing the formative influences -the Savoyard roots, religious heritage, and predominant intellectual influences - of Maistre's experience before 1794. The Joseph de Maistre revealed here is a more complex figure than either the bloody-minded apologist for conservatism portrayed by his liberal critics or the steadfast Church Father of his traditional Roman Catholic admirers. Maistre was a scholarly magistrate in the tradition of Montesquieu, a man who had been open to the trends of his time but was profoundly shaken by the violence of the French Revolution. Appalled by the prospect of chaos, he used his rhetorical skills as a lawyer to defend monarchical institutions and traditional Catholicism. Lebrun argues that only with the opening of the family archives and the discoveries in recent studies are we able to appreciate Maistre's struggles to understand the upheavals of his time, his doubts and hesitations, and his reasons for taking the public positions he chose.

Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions

Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions PDF Author: Joseph Marie comte de Maistre
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Constitutions
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Catalogue of Printed Books

Catalogue of Printed Books PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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The Reactionary Mind

The Reactionary Mind PDF Author: Corey Robin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190692006
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Now updated to include Trump's election and the rise of global populism, Corey Robin's 'The Reactionary Mind' traces conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution.

Democracy and Populism

Democracy and Populism PDF Author: John Lukacs
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300107730
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This intensely interesting—and troubling—book is the product of a lifetime of reflection and study of democracy. In it, John Lukacs addresses the questions of how our democracy has changed and why we have become vulnerable to the shallowest possible demagoguery. Lukacs contrasts the political systems, movements, and ideologies that have bedeviled the twentieth century: democracy, Liberalism, nationalism, fascism, Bolshevism, National Socialism, populism. Reflecting on American democracy, Lukacs describes its evolution from the eighteenth century to its current form—a dangerous and possibly irreversible populism. This involves, among other things, the predominance of popular sentiment over what used to be public opinion. This devolution has happened through the gigantic machinery of publicity, substituting propaganda—and entertainment—for knowledge, and ideology for a sense of history. It is a kind of populism that relies on nationalism and militarism to hold society together. Lukacs's observations are original, biting, timely, sure to inspire lively debate about the precarious state of American democracy today.

The Anatomy of Antiliberalism

The Anatomy of Antiliberalism PDF Author: Stephen Holmes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Holmes challenges the philosophical arguments of the high communitarians ... and their intellectual forebears. By the time he is finished, the opposing camp has no survivors, ancient or modern. Anybody who feels drawn to the high communitarian cause owes it to himself (though not to society) to read Mr. Holmes's book; everybody else should read it for pleasure.

Joseph de Maistre and his European Readers

Joseph de Maistre and his European Readers PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004206868
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Following the publication of Isaiah Berlin's essay on Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821), the Savoyard philosopher has been known primarily in the English-speaking world as a precursor of fascism. The essays in this volume challenge this view. Disclosing the inaccuracies and limitations of Berlin's account, they illustrate Maistre's colossally diverse European posterity. Far from an inflexible ideologist, Maistre was a versatile and deeply modern thinker who attracted interpreters across the political spectrum. Through the centuries, Maistre's passionate Europeanism has contributed to his popularity from Madrid to Moscow. And in our times, when religion is re-asserting itself as a source of public reason, his theorization of the encounter between tradition and modernity is lending his work ever more urgent relevance. Cover illustration by Matthieu Manche

British Museum Catalogue of printed Books

British Museum Catalogue of printed Books PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 588

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Book Description