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
Commentary
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… MoreMore 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