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Tzvetan Todorov is one of the leading intellectuals in Francetoday.
In this provocative new book he argues that the biggest threat todemocracy today is not the supposed external enemies of Islamicfundamentalism and terrorism: rather, the biggest threat isinternal to democracy itself: it's what the Greeks called hubris .
The political history of the twentieth century can be viewed asthe history of democracy's struggle against its externalenemies: fascism and communism. This struggle ended with the fallof the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet regime. Somepeople think that
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Produktbeschreibung
Tzvetan Todorov is one of the leading intellectuals in Francetoday.

In this provocative new book he argues that the biggest threat todemocracy today is not the supposed external enemies of Islamicfundamentalism and terrorism: rather, the biggest threat isinternal to democracy itself: it's what the Greeks called hubris .
The political history of the twentieth century can be viewed asthe history of democracy's struggle against its externalenemies: fascism and communism. This struggle ended with the fallof the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet regime. Somepeople think that democracy now faces new enemies: Islamicfundamentalism, religious extremism and internationalterrorism and that this is the struggle that will define ourtimes. Todorov disagrees: the biggest threat to democracy today isdemocracy itself. Its enemies are within: what the ancient Greekscalled hubris .

Todorov argues that certain democratic values have beendistorted and pushed to an extreme that serves the interests ofdominant states and powerful individuals. In the name of'democracy' and 'human rights', the UnitedStates and some European countries have embarked on a crusade toenlighten some foreign populations through the use of force. Yetthis mission to 'help' others has led to Abu Ghraib andGuantanamo, to large-scale destruction and loss of life and to amoral crisis of growing proportions. The defence of freedom, ifunlimited, can lead to the tyranny of individuals.

Drawing on recent history as well as his own experience ofgrowing up in a totalitarian regime, Todorov returns to examplesborrowed from the Western canon: from a dispute between Augustineand Pelagius to the fierce debates among Enlightenmentthinkers to explore the origin of these perversions ofdemocracy. He argues compellingly that the real democratic ideal isto be found in the delicate, ever-changing balance betweencompeting principles, popular sovereignty, freedom and progress.When one of these elements breaks free and turns into anover-riding principle, it becomes dangerous: populism,ultra-liberalism and messianism, the inner enemies ofdemocracy.

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Autorenporträt
Tzvetan Todorov is Director of Research at the CNRS in Paris.
Rezensionen
One of the great intellectuals of our time.
Stanley Hoffmann, Harvard University

This is a voice to be listened to attentively, for our shared planetary home's and all its residents' sake.
Zygmunt Bauman, University of Leeds

Now, of all times, there is a need for cool heads, such as Todorov, who approaches the limits of free speech with admirable dexterity.
The New York Review of Books

A coherent, relevant work in which intelligence and sincere humanism do battle ? a world away from the slippery moralizing of intellectual fence-sitters.
Le Nouvel Observateur

Todorov's work is that of a sage, a man who has read the great texts, who has lived through two political regimes, and who dares to express an idea that may seem at odds with his fervent defence of freedom and democracy: freedom for its own sake, freedom that forgets its duties and responsibilities, is self-destructive. What he writes is never ordinary, but always tolerant and life affirming.
L'Echo