Nature and History in American Political Development

Nature and History in American Political Development
Author: James W. Ceaser
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2006-03-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780674021587

In this inaugural volume of the Alexis de Tocqueville Lectures, Ceaser traces how certain “foundational” ideas—including nature, history, and religion—have been understood and used over the course of American history. Three commentators challenge his arguments, and a spirited debate about large and enduring questions in American politics ensues.

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 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.

Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont in America

Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont in America
Author: Alexis de Tocqueville
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010
Genre: National characteristics, American
ISBN: 9780813930626

A selection of Tocqueville's writings on America together with letters and sketches from his traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont.

Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America (LOA #147)

Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America (LOA #147)
Author: Alexis de Tocqueville
Publisher: Library of America
Total Pages: 960
Release: 2004-02-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1598531816

An exclusive new translation of the most perceptive and influential book ever written about American politics and society—“the bible on democracy” (The Texas Observer) Alexis de Tocqueville, a young aristocratic French lawyer, came to the United States in 1831 to study its penitentiary systems. His nine-month visit and subsequent reading and reflection resulted in this landmark masterpiece of political observation and analysis. In Democracy in America, Tocqueville vividly describes the unprecedented social equality he found in America and explores its implications for European society in the emerging modern era. His book provides enduring insight into the political consequences of widespread property ownership, the potential dangers to liberty inherent in majority rule, the vital role of religion in American life, and the importance of civil institutions in an individualistic culture dominated by the pursuit of material self-interest. He also probes the deep differences between the free and slave states, writing prophetically of racism, bigotry, and prejudice in the United States. Brought to life by Arthur Goldhammer’s clear, fluid, and vigorous translation, this volume of Democracy in America is the first to fully capture Tocqueville’s achievements both as an accomplished literary stylist and as a profound political thinker.

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.

American Vertigo

American Vertigo
Author: Bernard-Henri Lévy
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0307430626

What does it mean to be an American, and what can America be today? To answer these questions, celebrated philosopher and journalist Bernard-Henri Lévy spent a year traveling throughout the country in the footsteps of another great Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, whose Democracy in America remains the most influential book ever written about our country. The result is American Vertigo, a fascinating, wholly fresh look at a country we sometimes only think we know. From Rikers Island to Chicago mega-churches, from Muslim communities in Detroit to an Amish enclave in Iowa, Lévy investigates issues at the heart of our democracy: the special nature of American patriotism, the coexistence of freedom and religion (including the religion of baseball), the prison system, the “return of ideology” and the health of our political institutions, and much more. He revisits and updates Tocqueville’s most important beliefs, such as the dangers posed by “the tyranny of the majority,” explores what Europe and America have to learn from each other, and interprets what he sees with a novelist’s eye and a philosopher’s depth. Through powerful interview-based portraits across the spectrum of the American people, from prison guards to clergymen, from Norman Mailer to Barack Obama, from Sharon Stone to Richard Holbrooke, Lévy fills his book with a tapestry of American voices–some wise, some shocking. Both the grandeur and the hellish dimensions of American life are unflinchingly explored. And big themes emerge throughout, from the crucial choices America faces today to the underlying reality that, unlike the “Old World,” America remains the fulfillment of the world’s desire to worship, earn, and live as one wishes–a place, despite all, where inclusion remains not just an ideal but an actual practice. At a time when Americans are anxious about how the world perceives them and, indeed, keen to make sense of themselves, a brilliant and sympathetic foreign observer has arrived to help us begin a new conversation about the meaning of America.

Tocqueville and American Civilization

Tocqueville and American Civilization
Author: Samuel E. Wallace
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2020-02-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000680274

Not long after Max Lerner completed his comprehensive and influential study, America as a Civilization. he began work on a sustained analysis and assessment of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. The result, Tocqueville and American Civilization. ls a primer of Tocqueville's central concepts, as well as a detailed discussion of their meaning in the twentieth century. Originally published 1n 1966, Lerner's study ls a sweeping introduction to both Tocqueville's life and thought. Lerner devotes most of his attention to an exposition of the text. A meditative reading of Tocqueville's landmark work, its strengths and weaknesses. He ls especially adept at explaining Tocqueville's treatment of what he refers to as "master ideas." They include "the idea of democracy," "the idea of revolution." "the idea of a social style and character," and "the idea of history and God and man interacting with each other within the 'fatal circle' of necessity and freedom." Another important issue Lerner discusses ls the fragility of freedom, a concern he shared with Tocqueville. The new introduction by Robert Schmuhl traces the influence of Tocqueville on Lerner, showing how Democracy in America became an abiding point of reference in Lerner's thinking about the United States and the world at large. It was Tocqueville who drew Lerner's attention to the fusion of custom, law, and innovation that has become the hallmark of the American character. As a result, Tocqueville and American Civilization continues to be important for social and political theorists, historians, and scholars of American studies.