Zaganiaris, Jean <br/><br/>
From the Origins of Totalitarianism to the Paradoxes of Liberal Democracies: Interpretation and Use of Joseph de Maistre’s Thought by Isaiah Berlin 

 -  2004.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> Isaiah Berlin is a writer well known for his reflections on liberty and pluralism, and for his texts critiquing counter-revolutionary or romantic authors. In one of his works on the origins of totalitarianism, he found a foreshadowing of fascist doctrines in Joseph de Maistre’s work. The aim of this paper is to show that Berlin’s text goes far beyond the simple issue of the harbingers of totalitarianism. From an analysis of the social and intellectual context of his writing, we intend to incorporate Berlin’s work into a wider intellectual reflection on the paradoxes of the universalism of liberal democracies and of Enlightenment rationalism.