Democracy or Bonapartism: Two Centuries of War on Democracy

NY: Verso, 2024. 1st Edition. Hardcover_boards. New/New. FIRST PRINTING w/DJ wrapped in mylar. Physical Info: 1.18" H x 9.29" L x 5.98" W (1.1 lbs) 352 pages. Features: Bibliography, Index, Price on Product. Canfora, Luciano (Foreword by), Broder, David (Translator). Table of Contents: Foreword
1. The Fight for the Vote: A Tortuous and Still-Unfinished History
2. A New Tutor for the 'Childlike' Multitude
3. An Alternative to Property Qualifications: The Origins of Bonapartism, from America to France
4. The Trumpets of the Ruling Classes and the Bells of the Subaltern
5. The Bonapartist Regime's Baptism of Fire
6. Universal Suffrage, Proportional Representation and the Reaction Against It
7. The Twentieth Century: Between Emancipation and Disemancipation
8. The Triumph of Soft Bonapartism
Index
The history of the advent of universal suffrage is a fraught one. As late as the mid-twentieth century, it was still impeded by forms of censitary, racial and sexual discrimination, which proved especially stubborn in countries with the most rooted liberal tradition. Moreover, no sooner had it been achieved than universal suffrage was subject to internal depletion that reduced the exercise of political rights to the acclamation of a leader vested with very wide powers.