T21

Dear Readers, This coming week is an important one for Tocqueville 21 and our sponsors at the Center for Critical Democracy Studies and The Tocqueville Review. On June 2-3, The […]

President Macron, France’s erstwhile Jupiter, has been on the road this past week flogging his wares like an old-time VRP (for those too young to remember: VRP = voyageur représentant […]

Translated by Cross Lawrence The Anticipations Donald Trump seems to be surfing on his troubles with the American courts and Jair Bolsonaro has just returned to Brazil after three months […]

Michael Goldfarb, born 1950, in New York City is an American journalist and former London correspondent for NPR (National Public Radio). He’s the singular host of the podcast FRDH (First […]

The fractious meeting this week of the parties comprising the Nupes has unleashed a spate of editorials (e.g., this and this) wondering if the loose, (electorally) pragmatic coalition of left-and-lefter […]

Historians will not judge Biden kindly.  For the decision to exit Afghanistan and ensuing debacle he will rue the day. But the decision to run for office for a second […]

Tocqueville 21 · Justice, Freedom, and the Nature of Democracy with Alexis Carré Welcome back to the Tocqueville 21 Podcast! Today, I’m happy to present you with the second half […]

Yesterday President Macron celebrated his re-election victory in achieving pension reform. I almost said “re-election” because the speech laid out a program for the years ahead as if his presidency […]

Contrary to my (low-confidence) expectations, the Conseil Constitutionnel approved the reform bill with only minor changes (removing sweeteners that had been added to mollify the opposition in full knowledge that […]

Review: Martin Wolf, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (Penguin Press, 2023)   Martin Wolf, the veteran chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, lauded by global business folk and a […]

Tocqueville 21 Call for Applications – Editorial Board Tocqueville 21, a bilingual online journal covering history, democracy, and transatlantic affairs in the 21st century, is recruiting! We aim to add […]

  Les anticipations   Donald Trump semble surfer sur ses déboires avec la justice américaine et Jair Bolsonaro vient de rentrer au Brésil depuis trois mois passés en Floride. Les […]

Germans have never warmed to Emmanuel Macron, even in the early days when he was busily trying to patch up the Franco-German “couple.” But the couple now appears to be […]

Ivan Krastev has an interesting article in today’s FT (paywalled) in which he reflects on what he takes to be an overdramatization of the stakes of elections and/or reforms in […]

Escaping his troubles at home, Emmanuel Macron is visiting China. The visit has two distinct and some would say quite contradictory goals: on the one hand, France wants to do […]

The future of the pension reform bill remains in suspense for another week, until the Conseil Constitutionnel renders its decision on the provisions of the law itself as well as […]

I reflect on the current protests in historical context with historians Rafe Goldfarb and Antonio de Francesco on Emmanuel Laurentin’s radio broadcast/podcast Le Temps du Débat (April 3).

A TV station in Toronto invited me to opine on the resistance to French pension reform. I’m sure I managed to say enough to displease people on all sides.

Occasionally I write about matters other than French politics, so I’m taking the liberty of posting this recent review here. It discusses Chris Miller’s excellent book Chip War, and though […]

By Catherine Audard and Michel Forsé. Our article written for the half-century anniversary of Rawls’ A Theory of Justice is now available for free on Project MUSE. Throughout 2021, numerous […]

As he has done in previous regime crises, Emmanuel Macron is again promising a “new method” of governing. Unfortunately, nobody is listening, and a new “listening tour” is not likely […]

When the ‘AUKUS’ deal was announced in September 2021, it was met with a mixture of outrage and scepticism in Paris. Although Australia’s decision to renege on its €31 billion […]

It came down to the wire, and in the end the president simply did not have the votes. Nor did he have enough arm-twisting clout to persuade the fence-sitters whose […]

Let’s talk about cities.   This week was a pivotal one for the narrative of the American city with the unexpected fall of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. The story, which […]

Review: Glory M. Liu, Adam Smith’s America (Princeton University Press, 2022)   Adam Smith was born in 1723 in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, a small market town near Edinburgh. A life-long bachelor, Smith […]

Dear Reader,  With an eye on the recent one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Tocqueville 21 begins its coverage with a special press review penned by Arthur Goldhammer. […]

**This is the author’s response in our book forum on Megan Brown’s The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community. This week, we have published four reviews of […]

** This is the fourth in a series of four reviews of Megan Brown’s The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community. Previous reviews include: 1. When Algeria Was […]

** This is the third in a series of four reviews of Megan Brown’s The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community. Previous reviews include: 1. When Algeria Was […]

**This is the second in a series of four reviews of Megan Brown’s The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community. Previous reviews include: 1. When Algeria Was Europe? […]

Emmanuel Macron came to power as an ambitious young visionary who (rightly) divined a concentration of force in the center of the political spectrum–a force that supposedly relegated to the […]

** This is the first in a series of four reviews of Megan Brown’s The Seventh Member State: Algeria, France, and the European Community. Each day this week one review […]

Review: Rebecca Solnit, Orwell’s Roses (Penguin Random House)   “In the spring of 1936, a writer planted roses.” Thus begins Rebecca Solnit’s Orwell’s Roses. Six other chapters in this quirky work […]

Après avoir fait face à des menaces de toutes sortes culminant avec l’invasion des palais de la « Place des trois pouvoirs » conçu par Oscar Niemeyer, le gouvernement Lula […]

Around midday on June 7, 1962, residents of Algeria’s capital city watched smoke rise above the buildings in Alger-Centre, near the port. Nearly three months after the signing of a […]

Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National has stormed the French National Assembly with a politeness offensive, adopting unaccustomed decorum as a strategic weapon. Meanwhile, La France Insoumise, true to its moniker, […]

Tocqueville 21 · The Ukraine War, Europe, and Civic Duty with Alexis Carré Welcome back to the Tocqueville 21 Podcast for our first episode of 2023! This week, I sat […]

On Monday February 13th, the Center for Critical Democracy Studies will be hosting a presentation by Professor Christopher Heckstroth (University of Cambridge) titled The Democratic Prince: A Realist Theory of […]

Review: Martha Jones, Vanguard:  How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (Basic Books)   In their relentless quest for full equality in the United […]

In his famous survey of the United States, Alexis de Tocqueville wondered what effect democratic politics might have on the new nation. Specifically, he worried about democracy’s influence on foreign […]

« Perdeu mané … »* « Un fascisme sans tradition est inconcevable» —Pier Paolo Pasolini, Petrolio Le 15 novembre 2022, un ministre de la Cour suprême brésilienne, harcelé dans les […]

Review: Michael Sonenscher, ‘Capitalism: The Story behind the Word’, (Princeton University Press, 2022)   Before what we now call ‘capitalism’, there were commercial societies founded upon the division of labour, […]

Today’s mobilization against the government pension reform proposal was massive: 1.2 to 2 million people in the streets, public transport disrupted, schools and factories closed, etc. But the demonstrations remained […]

My article on “The Democracy of the Spectacle” is freely available here. This is part of the Tocqueville Review‘s tribute to Olivier Zunz, with whom I collaborated on several Tocqueville […]

The evolving French Left has reached a curious juncture. Olivier Faure, who staked his and the Socialist Party’s future on a risky alliance with the mercurial Jean-Luc Mélenchon, appears to […]

 Civil Institutions and Democratic Life in the United States In Honor of Olivier Zunz. Published in the fall of 2022, the latest issue of The Tocqueville Review is now available online. (Vol. […]

So great is the presumed power of the French presidency that every mere mortal who has filled the post–sat in Jupiter’s seat, as it were–has left it diminished. A president […]

Cette interview est la sixième de notre série ABC publiée sur notre site. Dans chaque entretien, nous posons trois questions : La première sur l’intention de l’auteur (A = Auteur) […]

After all the drama and derision of the UK’s political shenanigans over the last few months, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak may well be measured on terms determined by a former […]

  Review: Kei Hiruta, Hannah Arendt & Isaiah Berlin: Freedom, Politics, and Humanity  (Princeton University Press)   Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997), two of the 20th century’s most […]

**Last week we published a book forum on Emily Marker’s Black France, White Europe: Youth, Race, and Belonging in the Postwar Era, with four reviews of Marker’s book and an […]

**This is the author’s response in our book forum on Emily Marker’s Black France, White Europe” Youth, Race, and Belonging in the Postwar Era. This week, we have published four […]

**This is the fourth and final review in our forum on Emily Marker’s Black France, White Europe” Youth, Race, and Belonging in the Postwar Era. Previous reviews include: 1.  The […]

**This is the third in a series of four reviews of Emily Marker’s Black France, White Europe” Youth, Race, and Belonging in the Postwar Era. Previous reviews include: 1.  The […]

Pension reform: the perpetual big enchilada of French political life for the past 30 years. Yet another round was to have been the centerpiece of Macron’s second term, first scheduled […]

** This is the second in a series of four reviews of Emily Marker’s Black France, White Europe” Youth, Race, and Belonging in the Postwar Era. Each day this week […]

** This is the first in a series of four reviews of Emily Marker’s Black France, White Europe” Youth, Race, and Belonging in the Postwar Era. Each day this week […]

At The New Republic this week, they have a series of essays on America in 2050. “Will the United States still be one nation? Should it be?” they ask. Matthew […]

Les Républicains have chosen their new leader: Eric Ciotti. After Valérie Pécresse’s flameout in the presidential election, the choice was no doubt inevitable. It is nevertheless dismaying to have the […]

La France Insoumise awoke today to a new leadership, designated by itself without internal debate. Debates and votes are after all such messy affairs, and there’s always the danger that […]

Tocqueville 21 · Democracy in the United States and the 2022 Midterms with Pascale Siegel Season’s Greetings, and welcome back to the Tocqueville 21 Podcast. Today we discuss US politics, […]

Emmanuel Macron is back in the United States for his second state visit. This time there will be no presidential arm-wrestling or lint-picking, and the speculation will not focus on […]

As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, their turkey and mashed potatoes are normally accompanied by much-anticipated football games. American football, that is. But this Thursday, the game that the rest of the […]

Review: David A. Hollinger, Christianity’s American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular (Princeton University Press, 2022) Although it comprises fewer than 200 pages, David A. Hollinger’s […]

Review: Moisé Naím, The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century (St. Martin’s Press)   Less than a week before the recent mid-term elections in […]

In our ABC interviews, we ask an author of a newly published book only three questions: about themselves and their intellectual trajectory (A = Author), about the book’s thesis (B […]

** This is the author’s response to a series of four reviews of William Novak’s recently published book New Democracy: The Creation of the Modern American State. 1. The Limitless […]

** This is the fourth in a series of four reviews of William Novak’s recently published book New Democracy: The Creation of the Modern American State. 1. The Limitless Possibilities […]

** This is the third in a series of four reviews of William Novak’s recently published book New Democracy: The Creation of the Modern American State. 1. The Limitless Possibilities […]

** Ceci est la deuxième critique du livre New Democracy par William Novak. Elle est la seule en français. Les autres sont rédigées en anglais. This is the second in […]

** This is the first in a series of four reviews of William Novak’s recently published book New Democracy: The Creation of the Modern American State. Each day this week […]

After months of pessimism, the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections were received by Democrats as an extraordinary moment of hope. The much prophesied ‘red wave’, which had appeared so vast […]

Tocqueville 21 · China and the CCP with Adam Ni When it comes to the media and industry commentary surrounding Chinese politics, “Complexity is not a compelling narrative”. This is […]

Four years ago, the founder of Tocqueville 21, Editor Emeritus Jacob Hamburger, mused on the 2018 midterm elections and the evaporation of a much-anticipated blue wave.    It would seem […]

In tomorrow’s midterm elections, I will vote in person for the first time since 2008. For the past decade and a half, I lived abroad in several countries in Africa […]

Why are  we talking so much about Germany? Yes, there’s the German perspective on the Ukraine war – and the Zeitenwende, a “sea change”, with a fundamental altering of Germany’s […]

Review: Dan Hicks, The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (Pluto Press), and Bénédicte Savoy, Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat, translated […]

In our ABC interviews, we ask an author of a newly published book only three questions: about themselves and their intellectual trajectory (A = Author), about the book’s thesis (B […]

Emmanuel Macron staked out a claim to the political center without ever calling it that. “Ni droite ni gauche” pointed to a centrist position but avoided any suggestion that it […]

Revue de Presse «  Une nation qui ne demande à son gouvernement que le maintien de l’ordre est déjà esclave au fond du cœur ; elle est esclave de son bien-être […]

  Philosophe, enseignant à Sciences Po, fondateur du Think Tank GenerationLibre, Gaspard Koenig est un intellectuel engagé qui a écrit une quinzaine d’ouvrages. Il est notamment l’auteur de Liber, un […]

  On Friday, October 14th, the Center for Critical Democracy Studies will be hosting a book launch for Professor Umut Korkut’s (Glasgow Caledonian University) new co-edited volume with Professor James […]

Elon Musk’s newfound sympathy with Putin’s war aims and his alleged contact with the Russian dictator; Kanye West’s antisemitic outburst; Musk’s warm welcome of West back to Twitter.—All of these […]

  Revue de Presse: « C’était tous les jours tempête. » Voici une expression qui saisit bien l’actualité internationale du mois passé, et que l’on doit à l’écrivain Jérôme Garcin.   Premier […]

A book review of Helen Rappaport’s After the Romanovs: Russian Exiles in Paris From the Belle Epoque Through Revolution and War (St. Martin’s Press, 2022). Paris is “full of Russians […]

Cette interview ABC est la quatrième — mais la première publiée en français — sur notre site. D’autres interviews dans cette série comprennent The Politics of Imperial Memory in France, […]

  Winter is coming, certes. Mais cette semaine en Europe, et depuis l’invasion de l’Ukraine, tout semble prendre feu. Dans l’Est, Vladimir Poutine renouvelle son assaut contre l’Ukraine en annonçant […]

The 2022 presidential election marked the end of France’s old party system. The former mainstream parties of the right and the left garnered less than 10 percent of the vote […]

There are few genealogies of “property-owning democracy.”[1] This is a remarkable fact. In Britain and the United States competing visions of the idea have exerted a profound influence over both […]

Elizabeth Borgwardt, Christopher McKnight Nichols, and Andrew Preston (eds.), Rethinking American Grand Strategy (Oxford University Press, 2021) Late in the year 1906, a senior official in the British Foreign Office […]

This is the third of T21’s ABC short interview. Earlier ABC interviews include Christina B. Carroll on The Politics of Imperial Memory in France, 1850-1900 and Ester da Costa Meyer […]

This is a book review of Kati Marton’s The Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel (Simon & Schuster, 2021). Many can plausibly claim to have had a hand in […]

This is a book review of Marcel Gauchet’s Robespierre: The Man Who Divides us the Most (Princeton University Press, 2022) The name Robespierre still haunts the memory of the French […]

Robespierre and Democracy: Four Perspectives It is just over two hundred and twenty eight years since Maximilien Robespierre fell from power. And yet Robespierre still has the capacity to incite […]

This is the second ABCs short interview at T21. Our first was earlier this month with Christina B. Carroll about her new book The Politics of Imperial Memory in France, […]

A review of George Makari’s Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia (W.W. Norton and Company, 2021).   The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “xenophobia” as a “fear and hatred of […]

** The past two weeks, we have published four reviews of Olivier Zunz’s new biography of Alexis de Tocqueville—two in French, two in English—followed by a response by Zunz. The […]

**This is the author’s response to a series of four reviews – two in French and two in English – of Olivier Zunz’s The Man Who Understood Democracy. Last week, we […]

**This is the last of four reviews of Olivier Zunz’s The Man Who Understood Democracy. Last week, we published the first review: “Voyage dans les arcanes de la pensée Tocquevillienne” […]

** Cette recension est la troisième d’une série de quatre critiques de la nouvelle biographie d’Alexis de Tocqueville de l’historien Olivier Zunz. La semaine dernière nous avons publié la recension […]