Tocqueville, Covenant, and the Democratic Revolution
Subtitle: Harmonizing Earth with Heaven
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: August 28, 2005
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 400
ISBN-13: 9780739111741
Subjects: Political Ideologies - Democracy; Political Process - General; Political Science / General; Essays; History; Politics / Current Events; 1805-1859; Democracy; Politics and government; Social conditions; Tocqueville, Alexis de,; United States; History: World
Description: "Tocqueville, Covenant, and the Democratic Revolution examines the intellectual and institutional context in which Alexis de Tocqueville developed his understanding of American political culture, which had a profound influence on his democratic theory. American democracy, Tocqueville maintained, had emerged from the covenant tradition of Reformed Protestantism. The covenant, or foederal, theology of New England Puritans provided the ideational basis for federated church and civil government, which directly influenced the American constitutionalism and the republican institutions that Tocqueville later observed. Tocqueville suggested that the principles underlying American constitutionalism offer broader lessons in the art and science of self-government.

An important book for scholars of Tocqueville as well as American political thought, this study suggests that an understanding of the American covenant tradition is critical to our interpretation of Tocqueville's analysis of the democratic revolution and the "new science of politics" it necessitated."--Jacket.