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

• 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

• 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’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

• 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

• 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

• “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

Multimedia

• 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

• 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