Tocqueville in America

Tocqueville in America
Author: George Wilson Pierson
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 1764
Release: 1996
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780801855061

Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, traveled the breadth of America to inquire into the future of French society as revolutionary upheaval gave way to a representative government similar to America's. This text reconstructs from their diaries and letters and newspaper accounts their nine-month tour and evolving analysis of American society.

Tocqueville's Discovery of America

Tocqueville's Discovery of America
Author: Leo Damrosch
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2010-04-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1429945737

Alexis de Tocqueville is more quoted than read; commentators across the political spectrum invoke him as an oracle who defined America and its democracy for all times. But in fact his masterpiece, Democracy in America, was the product of a young man's open-minded experience of America at a time of rapid change. In Tocqueville's Discovery of America, the prizewinning biographer Leo Damrosch retraces Tocqueville's nine-month journey through the young nation in 1831–1832, illuminating how his enduring ideas were born of imaginative interchange with America and Americans, and painting a vivid picture of Jacksonian America. Damrosch shows that Tocqueville found much to admire in the dynamism of American society and in its egalitarian ideals. But he was offended by the ethos of grasping materialism and was convinced that the institution of slavery was bound to give rise to a tragic civil war. Drawing on documents and letters that have never before appeared in English, as well as on a wide range of scholarship, Tocqueville's Discovery of America brings the man, his ideas, and his world to startling life.

The Chicago Companion to Tocqueville's Democracy in America

The Chicago Companion to Tocqueville's Democracy in America
Author: James T. Schleifer
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2012-04-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226737055

One of the greatest books ever to be written on the United States, Democracy in America continues to find new readers who marvel at the lasting insights Alexis de Tocqueville had into our nation and its political culture. The work is, however, as challenging as it is important; its arguments can be complex and subtle, and its sheer length can make it difficult for any reader, especially one coming to it for the first time, to grasp Tocqueville’s meaning. The Chicago Companion to Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” is the first book written expressly to help general readers and students alike get the most out of this seminal work. Now James T. Schleifer, an expert on Tocqueville, has provided the background and information readers need in order to understand Tocqueville’s masterwork. In clear and engaging prose, Schleifer explains why Democracy in America is so important, how it came to be written, and how different generations of Americans have interpreted it since its publication. He also presents indispensable insight on who Tocqueville was, his trip to America, and what he meant by equality, democracy, and liberty. Drawing upon his intimate knowledge of Tocqueville’s papers and manuscripts, Schleifer reveals how Tocqueville’s ideas took shape and changed even in the course of writing the book. At the same time, Schleifer provides a detailed glossary of key terms and key passages, all accompanied by generous citations to the relevant pages in the University of Chicago Press Mansfield/Winthrop translation. TheChicago Companion will serve generations of readers as an essential guide to both the man and his work.

Tocqueville's Voyages

Tocqueville's Voyages
Author: Christine Dunn Henderson
Publisher: Amagi Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780865978706

Tocqueville's Voyages is a collection of Newly written essays by some of the most well-known Tocquevillian scholars today. The essays in the fisrt part of the volume explore the development of Tocqueville's thought, his intellectual voyage during his trip to America and while writing Domocracy in America. The second part of the book focuses on the dissemination of Tocqueville's ideas beyond the Franco-American contect of 1835-1840 in places such as Argentina, Japan and Eastern Europe. This book gives readers unprecedented access to the development of Tocqueville's thought as seen through the eyes of preeminent Tocquevillian scholars. Not only do the essays shed fresh light on the ideas in Democracy in America, but they also invite readers to reassess previous interpretations of Tocqueville's great work and to consider its continued relevance to the world.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville
Author: Hugh Brogan
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 756
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780300108033

A comprehensive portrait of the great French political thinker explores his life, work, travels in the United States, and writing of "Democracy in America."

The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America

The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America
Author: James T. Schleifer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2000
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780865972049

It is impossible fully to understand the American experience apart from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Moreover, it is impossible fully to appreciate Tocqueville by assuming that he brought to his visitation to America, or to the writing of his great work, a fixed philosophical doctrine. James T. Schleifer documents where, when, and under what influences Tocqueville wrote different sections of his work. In doing so, Schleifer discloses the mental processes through which Tocqueville passed in reflecting on his experiences in America and transforming these reflections into the most original and revealing book ever written about Americans. For the first time the evolution of a number of Tocqueville's central themes--democracy, individualism, centralization, despotism--emerges into clear relief. As Russell B. Nye has observed, "Schleifer's study is a model of intellectual history, an account of the intertwining of a man, a set of ideas, and the final product, a book." The Liberty Fund second edition includes a new preface by the author and an epilogue, "The Problem of the Two Democracies." James T. Schleifer is Professor of History and Director of the Gill Library at the College of New Rochelle

Tocqueville and His America

Tocqueville and His America
Author: Arthur Kaledin
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 478
Release: 2011-08-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0300119313

Kaledin offers an original combination of biography, character study and wide-ranging analysis of Toqueville's 'Democracy in America', bringing new light to that classic work.

Travels with Tocqueville Beyond America

Travels with Tocqueville Beyond America
Author: Jeremy Jennings
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 545
Release: 2023-03-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0674293118

A revelatory intellectual biography of Tocqueville, told through his wide-ranging travels—most of them, aside from his journey to America, barely known. It might be the most famous journey in the history of political thought: in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville sailed from France to the United States, spent nine months touring and observing the political culture of the fledgling republic, and produced the classic Democracy in America. But the United States was just one of the many places documented by the inveterate traveler. Jeremy Jennings follows Tocqueville’s voyages—by sailing ship, stagecoach, horseback, train, and foot—across Europe, North Africa, and of course North America. Along the way, Jennings reveals underappreciated aspects of Tocqueville’s character and sheds new light on the depth and range of his political and cultural commentary. Despite recurrent ill health and ever-growing political responsibilities, Tocqueville never stopped moving or learning. He wanted to understand what made political communities tick, what elite and popular mores they rested on, and how they were adjusting to rapid social and economic change—the rise of democracy and the Industrial Revolution, to be sure, but also the expansion of empire and the emergence of socialism. He lauded the orderly, Catholic-dominated society of Quebec; presciently diagnosed the boisterous but dangerously chauvinistic politics of Germany; considered England the freest and most unequal place on Earth; deplored the poverty he saw in Ireland; and championed French colonial settlement in Algeria. Drawing on correspondence, published writings, speeches, and the recollections of contemporaries, Travels with Tocqueville Beyond America is a panoramic combination of biography, history, and political theory that fully reflects the complex, restless mind at its center.

De Tocqueville

De Tocqueville
Author: Cheryl B. Welch
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2001
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780198781318

Founders of Modern Political and Social Thought present critical examinations of the work of major political philosphers and social theorists, assessing both their initial contribution and continuing relevance to politics and society. Each volume provides a clear, accessible, historically-informed account of each thinker's work, focusing on a reassessment of their central ideas and arguments. Founders encourage scholars and students to link their study of classic texts to current debates in political philosophy and social theory. Alexis de Tocqueville is one of the most topical and debated figures in contemporary political and social theory. This clear new introduction to de Tocqueville's thought examines in detail his classic works and their major themes. Welch argues thet Tocqueville's major themes tap into deep anxieties about democratic practices and his writings help us to identify the major fault lines in democracy at the turn of the new century. Beginning with a consideration of Tocqueville's distinctiveness against the historical background and intellectual context of his time, Welch goes on to trace the development of his thought on democracy and revolution, history, slavery, religion, and gender, including chapters dealing with his writings on France and the United States. The final chapter then explores Tocqueville's historical legacy and his contemporary significance, illuminating the reasons why this displaced nineteenth century aristocrat has become one of the most topical figures in contemporary political and social theory.