Book ReviewThe Prophet at Work: Some brand-new insights about Alexis de TocquevilleGuy SormanThe City Journal, 28 May 2010Tocquevilles Discovery of Americaby Leo Damrosch (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 304 pp., $27)American readers usually first learn about Alexis de Tocqueville as an ingenious young Frenchman whose journey here in 183132 helped him uncover the essence of the young democracy, which he summarized in a seminal and prophetic book, Democracy in America. Scholars and pundits on both the left and the right find in its two thick volumes ready-made quotations to buttress their arguments about the permanent character of American civilization. In his new book, Tocquevilles Discovery of America, Harvard literature professor Leo Damrosch breaks with this pristine reading and in the process rejuvenates well-trodden ground. His book arrives at a timely moment, since last fall the Hudson Review published remarkable letters that Tocqueville wrote, mostly to his parents, both on his way to America and after landing. Translated for the first time into English by Frederick Brown, the letters, like Damroschs book, shed new light on this giant whom we thought we already knew.This is not to say that the letters and the Damrosch book destroy the Tocqueville myth or minimize the mans genius. But they do make him more human, and above all, they explain the circumstances that underlay his insights. From the early letters, some written on the voyage over, we discover that Tocqueville knew a lot about America already. Just 25 when he set off, he had read much about the New World in French and in English. He knew where he was going and why.Officially, Tocqueville and his close friend Gustave de Beaumont, both magistrates for King Louis-Philippe, went to the U.S. to study the American penitentiary system, which operated on the principle of reeducation, in contrast with the punishment-based French model. On returning, they submitted a powerful report to the French government that found little to recommend in the American approach. However, behind this official endeavor, they both intended to write about America as a whole, in order to become famous, as Tocqueville wrote to his parents. For his part, Beaumont would publish a novel inspired by his travel.The ingenious young Tocqueville had not just ambition but an agenda. His letter to his fatherdated June 1831, at the outset of his American journeyreveals his intentions: Knowing as we do exactly what we want to ask, the most humble conversation is instructive and no man, whatever his social rank, is incapable of teaching us something. Tocqueville wanted to learn mostly what would fit the preconceived idea he had for his own book: that America was fundamentally different from Europe. The young nation was inventing a new kind of democratic, egalitarian society. From the outset of the trip, as the Hudson Review letters reveal, Tocqueville had a plan for the book. As Damrosch then shows, he stuck to it. Finding Boston too similar to Europe, he went off to see the frontierDetroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Tocquevilles ideal American was the frontiersman: well-educated (at least compared with the European peasant), individualistic, and