The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America
Edition: 2nd edition
Publisher: Liberty Fund
Published: September 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 411
ISBN-13: 9780865972049
Subjects: American history; Essays, journals, letters & other prose works; History: theory & methods; Political structures: democracy; Tocqueville, Alexis de,; Political History; Democracy; Political Science; Politics / Current Events; Sociology; USA; Political Ideologies - Democracy; Political; De la democratie en Amerique; 1805-1859; 1805-1859.; De la dâemocratie en Amâerique
Description: It is impossible to fully 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, centralisation, 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".