The spectre of democracy

"This book concentrates on the century and a half between the American and French Revolutions and the end of the First World War. This was the key period for public debate on the issue of democratization. Arguments for franchise extension had to contend with an entrenched antipathy to democratic ideas. Only if we resurrect expressions of this opposition, and recall the dominant values that democracy challenged, are we able to understand the real ideological context from which modern western values and institutions emerged."--BOOK JACKET. "A brief history of franchise extension in the USA, France, Germany and the United Kingdom provides the context for examining the attitudes to democracy of John Adams, de Tocqueville, Hegel and Carlyle. Separate chapters investigate the ideology of black subordination in the USA and opposition to the female vote. The conclusion includes an assessment of the extent to which pre-democratic thought still influences western political practice."--BOOK JACKET.