GREAT THINKERS Alexis de Tocqueville

Major Works

• Democracy In America

  - Recommended translation: Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Edited and translated by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Volume I originally published in 1835. Volume II originally published in 1840.
  Excerpt: "Among the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people. I readily discovered the prodigious influence that this primary fact… More

• The Old Regime and the Revolution

  - Recommended Translations: Tocqueville, Alexis de. The Old Regime and the Revolution. Vol. 1. Edited by François Furet and Françoise Mélonio. Translated by Alan S. Kahan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Tocqueville, Alexis de. The Old Regime and the Revolution. Vol. 2. Edited by François Furet and Françoise Mélonio. Translated by Alan S. Kahan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.  
  Excerpt: The book I now publish is not a history of the Revolution. That history has been too brilliantly written for me to think of writing it afresh. This is a mere essay on the Revolution. The French made, in 1789, the greatest effort that has ever been… More

• Recollections: The French Revolution of 1848

  - Recommended Translation: Tocqueville, Alexis de. Recollections: The French Revolution of 1848. Edited by J. P. Mayer and A. P. Kerr. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 1987. Originally published in 1893.
  Excerpt: Removed for a time from the scene of public life, I am constrained, in the midst of my solitude, to turn my thoughts upon myself, or rather to reflect upon contemporary events in which I have taken part or acted as a witness. And it seems to me that… More

Other Works

• Journey to America

  - Recommended Translation: Journey to America, ed. J.P. Mayer, trans. George Lawrence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960)
  Excerpt: 9 May. Yesterday morning the first cry of land was heard but it took a glass to see the coast. Today the rising sun has just revealed Long Island to us. We are approaching the shore rapidly, one already sees grass and trees in leaf; it’s a… More

• Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont in America

  - Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont in America: Their Friendship and Their Travels, ed. Olivier Zunz, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010)
  Excerpt: From Tocqueville To Charles Stoffels Paris, November 4, 1830 … My position in France is bad in every respect, at least to my way of seeing, for either this government will consolidate its position, which is not very likely, or it will be… More

• Correspondence and Conversation with Nassau Williams

  - Correspondence and Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834-1859, ed. M.C.M. Simpson, in Two Volumes (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1872)
  Excerpt: Alexis de Tocqueville to N.W. Senior March 24, 1834. My dear Mr. Senior,– I hope that you have not yet entirely forgotten one who will always remember your kind reception with gratitude. I take to-day the liberty of asking you to bestow a… More

• Journeys to England and Ireland

  - Journeys to England and Ireland, ed. J.P. Mayer, trans. George Lawrence and K.P. Mayer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958)
  Excerpt: Well, here I am at Tocqueville, in my old family ruin. A  league away is the harbour from which William set out to conquer England. I am surrounded by Normans whose names figure in the lists of the conquerors. All that, I must admit, ‘flatters… More

• Writings on Empire and Slavery

  - Writings on Empire and Slavery, ed. and trans. Jennifer Pitts.  (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2003)
  Excerpt: SOME IDEAS ABOUT WHAT PREVENTS THE FRENCH FROM HAVING GOOD COLONIES (1833) Even supposing that the territory that is to contain the colony has been discovered and that it combines the conditions necessary for the success of the enterprise, there… More

• Selected Letters on Politics and Society

  - Recommended Translation:  Selected Letters on Politics and Society, ed. Roger Boesche, trans. James Toupin and Roger Boesche (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986)
  Excerpt: Paris, Feb. 21, 1835. To Eugène Stoffels: It is a long time since I have had any talk with you, dear friend; yet I often think of you. Among other anxieties, I am anxious about your present and future position. I fancy that if, as seems probable,… More

Commentary

• Leo Strauss on Alexis de Tocqueville

  - Leo Strauss on Alexis de Tocqueville.  Transcript from class session.
  Excerpt: Tocqueville, living two generations after Burke, accepted modern democracy on a Burkian basis, without accepting all the [?] of natural religion.  That is the starting point of Tocqueville.  Tocqueville was here for a very short time, making some… More

• “M. de Tocqueville on Democracy in America” by J.S. Mill

  - Cohen, Marshall, ed. The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill. New York: The Modern Library, 1961.
  Fascinating review of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America by Tocqueville’s colleague and correspondent, John Stuart Mill. The letter reveals the enormous respect Mill had for Tocqueville but also the differences between the two thinkers, even as… More

• Main Currents in Sociological Thought

  - Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought: Montesuieu, Compte, Marx, Tocqueville, and the Sociologists and the Revolution of 1848, trans. Richard Howard and Helen Weaver (New York: Basic Books, 1965)
  Excerpt: Tocqueville is not ordinarily included among the founders of sociology; I consider this neglect of Tocqueville’s sociological writings unjustified.  But I have still another reason for wishing to discuss him.  For in studying Montesquieu, Comte,… More

• Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy

  - Marvin Zetterbaum.  Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy.  (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967)
  Excerpt: It is not uncommon for a major writer to be seen by his critics in widely divergent, even contradictory terms; Alexis de Tocqueville shares this fate.  To the familiar causes of critical disagreement, Tocqueville added his own—a veil of neutrality… More

• The Forms and Formalities of Liberty

  - Harvey C. Mansfield, ""The Forms and Formalities of Liberty," The Public Interest, No. 70 (Winter 1983), pp. 121-131."
  Excerpt: This statement is long for an epigraph but dense enough to require explanation, and deep enough to reward reflection. Speaking of “forms,” Tocqueville directs our attention to institutions or practices in which the manner of action is more… More

• Alexis de Tocqueville and the New Science of Politics

  - John C. Koritansky. Alexis de Tocqueville and the New Science of Politics (Durham, NC: Carolina Acadmic Press, 1986)
  Excerpt: In this book, I will try to describe and evaluate Tocqueville’s Democracy in America as a comprehensive teaching about politics.  Perhaps the best shorthand description of what Tocqueville is trying to do is to say that his Democracy has the same… More

• Alexis de Tocqueville

  - Marvin Zetterbaum, "Alexis de Tocqueville," History of Political Philosophy, ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, University of Chicago Press, 1987 (Third Edition).
  Excerpt: The publication in 1835 of the first part of Democracy in America established Alexis de Tocqueville as one of the foremost analysts of the problem of democracy.  Tocqueville was the first writer of modern times to undertake a comprehensive… More

• Tocqueville: A Biography

  - André Jardin.  Tocqueville: A Biography, trans. Lydia Davis with Robert Hemenway.  (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989)
  Excerpt: On 11 Thermidor of the year XIII (July 29, 1805) there was born in Paris “at 987, rue de la Ville-l’Eveque, Roule division… Alexis-Charles-Henri… son of Herve-Louis-Francois-Jean-Bonaventure Clérel, landed proprietor, aged 33, and… More

• Tocqueville and the Two Democracies by Jean-Claude Lamberti

  - Lamberti, Jean-Claude. Tocqueville and the Two Democracies. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
  Excerpt: The American National Character and Democratic State: Near the end of volume one of Democracy in America, Tocqueville points out the need to “distinguish carefully between the institutions of the United States and democratic institutions in… More

• Tocqueville: A Biography by Andre Hardin

  - Jardin, André. Tocqueville: A Biography. Translated by Lydia Davis and Robert Hemenway. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989.
  From the publisher: “In this first major biography of the author of Democracy in America, André Jardin traces Alexis de Tocqueville’s eventful life from his birth in 1805 to aristocratic parents in post-revolutionary France, through his trip to… More

• Tocqueville and the Problem of Natural Right

  - Robert Eden, "Tocqueville and the Problem of Natural Right" in Interpretation Vol. 17, No. 3 (Sprint 1990)
  Excerpt: “The primary questions of classical political philosophy, and the terms in which it stated them, were not specifically philosophic or scientific; they were questions that are raised in assemblies, councils, clubs and cabinets, and they were… More

• Interpreting Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

  - Interpreting Tocqueville's Democracy in America, ed. Ken Masugi.  (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1991)
  Excerpt: Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) is so frequently quoted that his readers may not probe beneath the enticing surface Democracy in America presents.  Many would remain content with pickin and choosing from his text, reading him as others do Montaigne… More

• The Illiberal Tocqueville

  - Edward Banfield.  "The Illiberal Tocqueville" in Here the People Rule.  (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1991)
  Excerpt: Democracy in America has been called the greatest book ever written about one country by a citizen of another.  It is certainly the greatest book ever written by anyone about America.  After 150 years there is hardly a page that does not open the… More

• The Restless Mind: Alexis de Tocqueville on the Origin and Perpetuation of Human Liberty

  - Peter Augustine Lawler, "The Restless Mind: Alexis de Tocqueville on the Origin and Perpetuation of Human Liberty."  (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993)
  Excerpt: I begin with socialism for a number of reasons.  Tocqueville saw the socialists as the most extreme and dangerous opponents to human liberty in his time.  His most pressing task as a political actor was to oppose socialist revolution.  He also… More

• Tocqueville’s Defense of Human Liberty

  - Tocqueville’s Defense of Human Liberty, ed. Peter Lawler and Joseph Alulis (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993)
  Excerpt: Tocqueville seems to be the authority in our time for those who see the inadequacy of both bourgeois and socialist life for human beings.  Hence he inspires those who oppose the misanthropic reductionism of apolitical theory of every sort.  Each of… More

• America’s Constitutional Soul

  - Harvey C. Mansfield, America’s Constitutional Soul, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993)
  Excerpt: When it comes to American politics, I am an amateur. I love America at its best, or even at its most characteristic: “only in America.” Perhaps this kind of love ought to qualify me as a professional, because it requires one to learn what those… More

• Revolutions Revisited

  - Ralph Lerner, Revolutions Revisisted: Two Faces of the Politics of Enlightenment. (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994)
  Excerpt: The more impressive a work of historical analysis, the greater the likelihood it will deceive.  Whether a popular article or a scholarly monograph, its aura of completeness and balance, even its physical unity, may serve to conceal the field of… More

• An Intellectual History of Liberalism

  - Pierre Manent. An Intellectual History of Liberalism, trans. Rebecca Balinski (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994)
  Excerpt: Is it possible to “end,” to “settle” the Revolution?  How can political institutions appropriate for the new society be constructed?  Tocqueville, like Constant and Guizot, had these questions thrust upon him.  However, they now presented… More

• Self-Interest Rightly Understood

  - Harvey C. Mansfield, "Self-Interest Rightly Understood," Political Theory, vol. 23 (1995), No. 1, pp. 48-66.
  Excerpt: The collapse of communism is an occasion to rethink our bourgeois liberalism, which has surprised everyone, favorable or not, with its success. In particular it is time to have another look at self-interest. For communism is said to have collapsed… More

• Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy

  - Pierre Manent.  Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy, trans. John Waggoner.  (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996)
  Excerpt: Tocqueville distills his discovery of the essence of modern society, of democracy, in this way. The equality of conditions is not a single characteristic among others, however important they may be; it is the “generative fact” from which… More

• The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future

  - Joshua Mitchell.  The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)
  Excerpt: The Delphic injunction, “Know thyself,” seems nowhere to have been more happily violated than in the American context. It was, after all, Tocqueville the Frenchman, the stranger in America, who was able to grasp the multiple valences of the… More

• Liberalism and Big Government: Tocqueville’s Analysis

  - Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, “Liberalism and Big Government: Tocqueville’s Analysis,”  in Politics at the End of the Century, ed. Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, M. Richard Zinman (London: Institute of United States Studies, 1999) 1-31

• The Making of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

  - James T. Schleifer, The Making of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Foreword by George W. Pierson (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000)
  Excerpt: Alexis de Tocqueville’s first journey to America ended on 20 February 1832, when the Havre sailed from New York for France. But his nine-month visit had been only a preface to a second voyage that would consume the next eight years: the writing of… More

• “Majority Tyranny in Aristotle and Tocqueville” by Harvey Mansfield

  - Mansfield, Harvey C. "Majority Tyranny in Aristotle and Tocqueville." In Friends and Citizens: Essays in Honor of Wilson Carey McWilliams, edited by Peter Dennis Bathory and Nancy L. Schwartz, 289–297. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.
  Excerpt: To compare Aristotle and Alexis de Tocqueville may not seem appropriate because Tocqueville does not seem to address Aristotle directly. He did not read Aristotle every day as he said he read Pascal, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. The latter are modern… More

• De Tocqueville

  - Cheryl B. Welch, "De Tocqueville" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)
  Excerpt: Alexis de Tocqueville was born nearly two centuries ago into what he himself characterized as a dying breed of anachronistic aristocrats.  Yet his work seems to retain a greater measure of normative and explanatory power—and intellectual… More

• Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion in the Age of Democracy

  -
  Aristide Tessitore.  "Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion in the Age of Democracy" in The Journal of Politics , Vol. 64, No. 4 (Nov., 2002)
  Excerpt: Shortly after arriving in the new world, Tocqueville wrote to one of his oldest friends about the flurry of conflicting impressions that greeted him in New York. He was struck by “a mixture of vices and virtues that is rather difficult to… More

• Tocqueville between Two Worlds: The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life

  - Sheldon Wolin, Tocqueville between Two Worlds: The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life.  (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003)
  Excerpt: Tocqueville singled out “powerlessness” as the striking characteristic of the politics of the times. Yet those times might also be described as notable for the abundance and variety of powers rather than their scarcity and for actors… More

• Citizenship as a Vocation

  - Patrick J. Deneen, "Citizenship as a Vocation" in Democracy and Its Friendly Critics: Tocqueville and Political Life Today, ed. Peter Augustine Lawler.  (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004)
  Excerpt: I. The Restless American Tocqueville was among the first commentators on the American scene to speak of the :restlessness,” or “restiveness” of democratic man.  Tormented by the openness of democratic society born of the universal… More

• Liberty, Equality, Nobility: Kolnai, Tocqueville, and the Moral Foundations of Democracy

  - Daniel J. Mahoney, "Liberty, Equality, Nobility: Kolnai, Tocqueville, and the Moral Foundations of Democracy" in Democracy and Its Friendly Critics: Tocqueville and Political Life Today, ed. Peter Augustine Lawler.  (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004)
  Excerpt: “If society exists for the sake of anything at all, it exists for the sake of itself and thus for the sake of its ruling, leading and tone-giving members, and for the sake of the distinctively valuable, eminent, virtuous, ingenious and creative… More

• Nature and Fact in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

  - Harvey C. Mansfield, “Nature and Fact in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America,” Nature in American Philosophy, Jean De Groot, ed., Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America, 2004, 109-128.
  Excerpt: Today political science speaks of facts but studiously avoids speaking of nature or natural or what happens naturally.  Classical political science, however, rests on nature and never speaks of facts.  “Fact” is a modern term that seems… More

• Tocqueville and the Americans

  - Olivier Zunz, "Tocqueville and the Americans: Democracy in America as Read in Nineteenth-Century America," in The Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville,  ed. Cheryl B. Welch.  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)
  Excerpt: Volume 1 of Democracy in America was published in France in January 1835 to immediate acclaim.1 In England, Henry Reeve translated it promptly, and it was published during the same year.  But an American edition, the first requirement for broad… More

• Tocqueville and the French

  - 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… More

• Tocqueville, Political Philosopher

  - Pierre Manent, "Tocqueville, Political Philosopher," trans. Arthur Goldhammer in The Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville,  ed. Cheryl B. Welch.  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)
  Excerpt: Since 2002,texts by Tocqueville have been included in the syllabus  for the French Agrégation de Philosophie. What are we to think of this belated promotion of Tocqueville to the rank of  philosopher? Did the sages who draft the syllabi give into… More

• Tocqueville’s New Political Science

  - Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, "Tocqueville's New Political Science" in The Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville, ed. Cheryl B. Welch.  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
  Excerpt: “A new political science is needed for a world altogether new.” (DAI Intro., 7) Here is a striking statement, given a paragraph to itself, from the Introduction to Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.  Although it could hardly be… More

• The Cambridge Companion to Toqueville

  - The Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville, ed. Cheryl B. Welch, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
  Table of Contents: Part I. Theory: 1. Tocqueville’s Comparative Perspectives by Seymour Drescher 2. Tocqueville on 1789: Preconditions, Precipitants, and Triggers by Jon Elster 3. Tocqueville’s New Political Science by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba… More

• Beyond the Bon Ménage: Tocqueville and the Paradox of Liberal Citoyennes

  - Cheryl B. Welch, "Beyond the Bon Ménage: Tocqueville and the Paradox of Liberal Citoyennes" in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville, ed. Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting. (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009)
  Excerpt: The theme of claustration–the cloistering of women in religious houses–was a staple of gothic literature in the first half of the nineteenth century.  Melodramas of incarceration tapped general fears about women’s divided loyalties… More

• Tocqueville’s American Woman and “The True Conception of Democratic Progress”

  - Delba Winthrop, "Tocqueville's American Woman and "The True Conception of Democratic Progress" in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville, ed. Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting. (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009)
  Excerpt: Women, although the moral and intellectual equals of men, should remain barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen? To us, the thought is repugnant, not to say wrongheaded. At first glance there seems no better place to turn to—or run from— than… More

• Tocqueville: A Very Short Introduction by Harvey Mansfield

  - Mansfield, Harvey C. Tocqueville: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
  Excerpt: “What sort of man was Alexis de Tocqueville? A writer, certainly, and with great style, but a writer of nonfiction conveying fact and truth in compelling terms with brilliant formulations. A social scientist, but without the cumbersome… More

• Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect

  - Paul A Rahe.  Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010)
  Excerpt:   In early November 1836, when Tocqueville wrote to Louis de Kergorlay to voice his frustration and his worries, he complained that “a multitude of ideas remains obscure in my mind,” ad he lamented that, in the absence of his childhood… More

• Alexis de Tocqueville and the Two-Founding Thesis

  - James W. Ceaser. "Alexis de Tocqueville and the Two-Founding Thesis." APSA 2010 Annual Meeting Paper.
  Excerpt: Alexis de Tocqueville was one of the first thinkers in the nineteenth century to challenge the prevailing historical account of the American founding. According to that account, which was well on the way to becoming solidified when Tocqueville… More

• More Than Kings and Less Than Men: Tocqueville on the Promise and Perils of Democratic Individualism

  - L. Joseph Hebert, Jr.  More Than Kings and Less Than Men: Tocqueville on the Promise and Perils of Democratic Individualism (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010)  
  Excerpt: According to a tradition of classical writing, the key to any great work is in its beginning.  Tocqueville, whose college years were steeped in the study and imitation of Cicero and Demosthenes, illustrates this maxim well.  He tells us that the… More

• “Tocqueville on Human Nature and Natural Right” by Donald Maletz

  - Maletz, Donald J. "Tocqueville on Human Nature and Natural Right." Interpretation 37, no. 2 (Winter 2010)
  Excerpt: Tocqueville’s account of American democracy makes no use of what might be thought one of its philosophical foundations, the theory of natural rights based on an interpretation of abstract and universal human nature. Yet at the same time he offers… More

• A New Kind of Liberalism

  - Harvey C. Mansfield, "A New Kind of Liberalism," New Criterion, March 2010.
  Excerpt: In view of Alexis de Tocqueville’s criticisms of philosophy, it may seem paradoxical and presumptuous to call him a philosopher; yet it was through his critique of philosophy that he set forth a new, rethought liberalism. In Democracy in America,… More

• Toqueville: A Very Short Introduction

  - Harvey C. Mansfield, Toqueville: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2010.
  Excerpt: In view of Tocqueville’s criticisms of philosophy, it may seem paradoxical and presumptuous to call him a philosopher. But he calls himself a “new kind of liberal;’ and he sets forth a new liberalism that he has rethought. In… More

• Alexis de Tocqueville and the Art of Democratic Statesmanship

  - Alexis de Tocqueville and the Art of Democratic Statesmanship, ed. Brian Danhoff and L. Joseph Hebert, Jr. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011).
  Excerpt: Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop have written that “Democracy in America is at once the best book ever written on democracy and the best book ever written on America.”  The editors of this volume concur with this assessment, and aim to… More

• “Providence and Democracy” by Harvey Mansfield

  - Mansfield, Harvey C. "Providence and Democracy." Claremont Review of Books, Winter/Spring 2010/2011.
  Excerpt: Alexis de Tocqueville was a liberal, but, as he once wrote, a ‘new kind of liberal.’ For us, no feature of his new liberalism is more remarkable than the alliance between religion and liberty that he saw in America and proposed to be… More

• Tocqueville and America

  - James Q. Wilson.  "Tocqueville and America," Claremont Review of Books, Vol. XII, No. 2 (Spring 2012)
  Excerpt of an admiring but critical essay by James Q. Wilson on Tocqueville: Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville is no doubt the greatest book ever written by a foreigner about this country. It may be one of the greatest books written about any… More

• Tocqueville’s Machiavellianism

  - Mansfield, Harvey C. and Delba Winthrop. "Tocqueville's Machiavellianism." Perspectives on Political Science 43, no. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 2014): 87-92.
  Abstract: Tocqueville’s sole reference to Machiavelli in Democracy in America is a nicely located misquotation. This article makes much of it, more than one would likely think possible. Tocqueville’s mission was to replace Machiavelli in his role… More

• Tocqueville on Religion and Liberty

  - Mansfield, Harvey. "Tocqueville on Religion and Liberty." American Political Thought, Spring: 2016.
  Excerpt: I stop the first American I meet … and I ask him if he believes religion to be useful to the stability of laws and to the good order of society; without hesitation he answers that a civilized society, but above all a free society, cannot subsist… More

• Tocqueville on Religion and American Democracy

  - Carson Holloway, "Tocqueville on Christianity and American Democracy," First Principles Series, Heritage Foundation, April, 2016.
  Excerpt: In recent years, Americans have lost sight of religion’s positive contribution to creating and sustaining our democracy. We have not forgotten religion’s relevance to our political life; we are continually reminded of that by our ongoing debates… More

Multimedia

• Tocqueville in France

  - "Tocqueville in France, "C-SPAN Discussion, April 26, 1997
  Tocqueville in France The Tocqueville series was launched with a live program from the Normandy, France chateau of the Tocqueville family. Descendants of Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, Tocqueville scholars and others discussed the family… More

• Tocqueville and Conservatism

  - "Tocqueville and Conservatism, " C-SPAN Discussion, September 12, 1997
  Tocqueville and Conservatism Tocqueville scholars discussed the conservative ideas in Democracy in America. They examined how Tocqueville’s ideas compare with late 20th century U.S. and European conservatism and the similarities between Tocqueville and… More

• Tocqueville and Liberalism

  - "Tocqueville and Liberalism," C-SPAN Discussion, September 12, 1997
  Tocqueville and Liberalism Professors from the United States and western Europe discussed the impact of the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville as they relate to liberalism. They debated whether Tocqueville was a liberal and whether the definition and scope… More

• Tocqueville and Aristocracy

  - "Tocqueville and Aristocracy," C-Span Discussion, September 12, 1997
  Tocqueville and Aristocracy Political scientists and historians from the U.S. and Europe talked about the philosophies of Alexis de Tocqueville, questioning how much of a democrat he was and how much the philosopher Aristotle influenced his writing. The… More

• Tocqueville and Socialism

  - "Tocqueville and Socialism," C-Span Discussion, September 12, 1997
  Tocqueville and Socialism The panel talked about the philosophy of Alexis de Tocqueville. They compared his writings to those of Rousseau and Marx, along with other contemporary thinkers. They focused on the conflict between individualism and collectivism… More

• Tocqueville and Equality

  - "Tocqueville and Equality," C-Span Discussion, October 22, 1997
  Tocqueville and Equality The panelists discussed Tocqueville’s ideas about equality and democracy from his observations in his book Democracy in America. They examined the reasons that U.S. society has developed relatively little, the possibility of the… More

• Democracy in America

  - "Democracy in America," interview with Brian Lamb, C-SPAN, 17 October 2000.
  Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville’s book he wrote on his return to France from America in 1831 remains the most often quoted book about the United States. Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop’s new translation is the first to appear in… More

• Colloquium on Democracy in America

  - Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, "Colloquium on Democracy in America," panel discussion, Ashbrook Center, March 30, 2001.
  Colloquium on Democracy in America Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop’s new translation of Democracy in America (University of Chicago, 2000) is only the third since the original two-volume work was published in 1835 and 1840. It is a spectacular… More

• Democratic Greatness in the American Founding

  - Harvey C. Mansfield, "Democratic Greatness in the American Founding," lecture, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, October 1, 2004.
  Democratic Greatness in the American Founding ISI Lecture by Harvey Mansfield

• Harvey Mansfield: In-Depth on Tocqueville

  - "In-Depth with Harvey Mansfield," interview, C-SPAN, September 4 2005.
  In Depth with Harvey Mansfield

• On Religion and Rational Control

  - Harvey Mansfield, "On Religion and Rational Control," Bradley Lecture at AEI, November 3, 2008
  Lecture: On Religion and Rational Control “Rational control” is the subjection of society to reason as opposed to superstition, prejudice, or tradition, with the aim of getting us to behave better. Alexis de Tocqueville says this idea or practice began… More

• Tocqueville’s Alliance of Religion and Liberty

  - Harvey C. Mansfield, "Tocqueville's Alliance of Religion and Liberty," Lecture at Catholic University, October 8, 2010

• Democratic Statecraft: Tocqueville, Democracy in America

  - Steven B. Smith, Yale University Course Lectures on Alexis de Tocqueville in "PLSC 114: Introduction to Political Philosophy"  
  Democratic Statecraft: Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Lecture I With the emergence of democracies in Europe and the New World at the beginning of the nineteenth century, political philosophers began to re-evaluate the relationship between freedom and… More

• Tocqueville’s World and Ours

  - James Ceaser, "Tocqueville's World and Ours," Lecture at Furman University, February 20, 2013
  Tocqueville’s World and Ours A rigorous examination of Democracy in America’s “new political science” and a search to answer, “What was Tocqueville putting behind him?” with his declaredly new approach.

• Harvey Mansfield on Party Government and Modern Political Philosophy

  - Harvey Mansfield III on Conversations with Bill Kristol, 2014.
  In this 2014 conversation with Bill Kristol, Harvey Mansfield of Harvard explains why Tocqueville was a “philosopher who was suspicious of philosophy.”

• Conversations with Bill Kristol: Harvey Mansfield on Tocqueville’s Machiavellianism

  - Harvey Mansfield (Interview 14), Conversations with Bill Kristol, Released: December 17, 2017.
  In this Conversation, Harvey Mansfield explains the connection between the thought of Alexis de Tocqueville and Machiavelli.

• Harvey Mansfield on Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

  - "Harvey Mansfield on Tocqueville's Democracy in America," Conversations with Bill Kristol, June 17, 2019.
  In this Conversation, Harvey Mansfield offers an in-depth interpretation of Tocqueville’s masterwork.

• Dana Stauffer: “Tocqueville on Modern Discontent”

  - Dana Stauffer, "Tocqueville on Modern Discontent," Michigan State University, 1/29/2020.
  Prof. Dana Stauffer of the University of Texas speaks at Michigan State University on Alexis de Tocqueville.