Major Works

• 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

Commentary

• 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 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 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

• 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

• 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

• “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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• “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

• “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