Dictatorship in History and Theory

This book brings together the work of historians and political theorists to examine the complex relationship among nineteenth century democracy, nationalism, and authoritarism, 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.