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

Other Works

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• “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

• 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’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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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.