Dictatorship in History and Theory

A distinguished group of historians and political theorists examine the complex relationship between nineteenth-century democracy, nationalism, and authoritarianism, paying especial attention to the careers of Napoleon I and III, and of Bismarck. An important contribution of the book is to consider not only the momentous episodes of coup d’etat, revolution, and imperial foundation which the Napoleonic era heralded, but also the contested political language with which these events were described and assessed. Political thinkers were faced with a battery of new terms - ‘Bonapartism’, ‘Caesarism’, and ‘Imperialism’ among them - with which to make sense of their era. As well as documenting the political history of a revolutionary age, the book examines a series of thinkers - Tocqueville, Marx, Max Weber, Antonio Gramsci, Carl Schmitt, and Hannah Arendt - who articulated and helped to reshare our sense of the political.

• Brings together the works of both historians and political theorists • Shows the relationship between political events and political language • Examines the writings of Tocqueville, Marx, Weber, Gramsci, Schmitt, and Arendt on modern dictatorship

Part I. Bonapartism to Its Contemporaries: 1. From consulate to empire: impetus and resistance Isser Woloch; 2. The Bonapartes and Germany T. C. W. Blanning; 3. Prussian conservatives and the problem of Bonapartism David E. Barclay; 4. Tocqueville and French nineteenth-century conceptualizations of the two Bonapartes and their empires Melvin Richter; 5. Marx and Brumaire Terrell Carver; 6. Bonapartism as the progenitor of democracy: the paradoxical case of the French Second Empire Sudhir Hazareesingh; Part II. Bonapartism, Caesarism, Totalitarianism: Twentieth-Century Experiences and Reflections: 7. Max Weber and the avatars of Caesarism Peter Baehr; 8. The concept of Caesarism in Gramsci Benedetto Fontana; 9. From constitutional technique to Caesarist ploy: Carl Schmitt on dictatorship, liberalism and emergency powers John P. McCormick; 10. Bonapartist and Gaullist heroic leadership: comparing crisis appeals to an impersonated people Jack Hayward; 11. The leader and the masses: Hannah Arendt on totalitarianism and dictatorship Margaret Canovan; Part III. Ancient Resonances: 12. Dictatorship in Rome Claude Nicolet; 13. From the historical Caesar to the spectre of Caesarism: the imperial administrator as internal threat Arthur M. Eckstein.