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

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

Commentary

• 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 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

Multimedia

• 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 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