Françoise Mélonio, "Tocqueville and the French," trans. Arthur Goldhammer in The Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville, ed. Cheryl B. Welch.  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Excerpt:

The purpose of this chapter is to show that Tocqueville’s thought gains in stature if we take account of his roots in French culture. The vigor of Tocqueville’s interpretation of the United States stems from his comparative approach. The purpose of Democracy in America is not to describe the American Constitution or mores but to draw from them lessons for other democracies by way of a constant comparison with Europe and, above all, with France.  For “it is one of the singular infirmities of the human mind that it cannot judge objects or see them clearly and in full daylight unless it places them alongside other objects.”

Tocqueville’s relation to French tradition has two dimensions, political and literary, and both must be taken into account in interpreting his work.

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