Harvey Mansfield – författare

One of France's leading and most controversial political thinkers explores the central themes of Tocqueville's writings: the democratic revolution and the modern passion for equality. What becomes of people when they are overcome by this passion and how does it transform the contents of life? Pierre Manent's analysis concludes that the growth of state power and the homogenization of society are two primary consequences of equalizing conditions. The author shows the contemporary relevance of Tocqueville's teaching: to love democracy well, one must love it moderately. Manent examines the prophetic nature of Tocqueville's writings with breadth, clarity, and depth. His findings are both timely and highly relevant as people in Eastern Europe and around the world are grappling with the fragile, complicated, and frequently contradictory nature of democracy. This book is essential reading for students and scholars of political theory and political philosophy, as well as general readers interested in the nature of modern democracy.

Where Harvard Went Wrong contains Harvey Mansfields addresses, spanning fifty years, to Harvard colleagues and students. Mansfields plea is, and has always been, that Harvard abandon its partisanship with the left and adopt instead a bipartisan position that welcomes conservatives as well as liberals.With the humor and grace necessary to a longtime lone conservative voice, Mansfield tackles the consequences that intolerant wokeism has wrought upon the university. In a collection of seven articles reproduced from the undergraduate newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, Mansfield treats the clash between Harvard and the Trump administration: he covers Harvards unsteady self-conception as an Ivory Tower, affirmative action for conservatives, free speech and protest speech, and the misconceived division between science and the humanities. Altogether, not confining himself to complaints of injustice, he shows what conservatives might offer to improve American higher education.In other, varied speeches and articles from 1975 to the present, Mansfield contrasts the new and the old Harvard, setting the stage for the conflict today; offers a reform curriculum for a college with ambition; and studies the insidious effects of rampant grade inflation and the forfeiture of merit-based grading.In Where Harvard Went Wrong, one professor stands up to a whole faculty, offering arguments rather than evasions and equivocation, and keeping as his lodestar the principle that education must conserve the tradition of learning as well as progress beyond the present. This book is meant for both partiesa guide for conservatives and a gentle, friendly reproach to liberals.

No one has ever described American democracy with more accurate insight or more profoundly than Alexis de Tocqueville. After meeting with Americans on extensive travels in the United States, and intense study of documents and authorities, he authored the landmark Democracy in America, publishing its two volumes in 1835 and 1840. Ever since, this book has been the best source for every serious attempt to understand America and democracy itself. Yet Tocqueville himself remains a mystery behind the elegance of his style. Now one of our leading authorities on Tocqueville explains him in this splendid new entry in Oxford's acclaimed Very Short Introductions series. Harvey Mansfield addresses his subject as a thinker, clearly and incisively exploring Tocqueville's writings-not only his masterpiece, but also his secret Recollections, intended for posterity alone, and his unfinished work on his native France, The Old Regime and the Revolution. Tocqueville was a liberal, Mansfield writes, but not of the usual sort. The many elements of his life found expression in his thought: his aristocratic ancestry, his ventures in politics, his voyages abroad, his hopes and fears for America, and his disappointment with France. All his writings show a passion for political liberty and insistence on human greatness. Perhaps most important, he saw liberty not in theories, but in the practice of self-government in America. Ever an opponent of abstraction, he offered an analysis that forces us to consider what we actually do in our politics--suggesting that theory itself may be an enemy of freedom. And that, Mansfield writes, makes him a vitally important thinker for today.Translator of an authoritative edition of Democracy in America, Harvey Mansfield here offers the fruit of decades of research and reflection in a clear, insightful, and marvelously compact introduction.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.