The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America

by Schleifer, James T.

• ISBN13: 9780865972056
• ISBN10: 0865972052
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-05-01
• Publisher: Liberty Fund

Summary

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".

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xi
Foreword	xiii
George W. Pierson
Preface to the Liberty Fund Edition	xix
Preface to the First Edition	xxi
PART I Tocqueville's Second Voyage to America, 1832-1840
The Writing of the First Part of the Democracy	3	(20)
An Expanding Task Resumed	23	(26)
PART II How to Account for america? Tocqueville Looks at Some Particular Causes Physiques
An Hypothesis Weighed and Rejected	49	(16)
Further Considerations of Environment	65	(17)
Was Race a Sufficient Explanation of the American Character?	82	(15)
The Transformation of a Continent	97	(18)
PART III Tocqueville and the Union: The Nature and Future of American Federalism
The Bond between the States and the Central Government	115	(20)
A Prophet in Error	135	(14)
How Large Might a Republic Be?	149	(12)
PART IV Democracy, Centralization, and Democratic Despotisms
Centralization and Local Liberties	161	(24)
Where Would Power Accumulate?	185	(18)
Administrative Centralization and Some Remedies	203	(18)
Tocqueville's Changing Visions of Democratic Despotism	221	(20)
PART V Democracy, the Individual, and the Masses
The Tyranny of the Majority	241	(24)
The Tyranny of the Majority: Some Paradoxes	265	(14)
Would Democratie Usher in a New Dark Ages?	279	(11)
Democratie and Egoisme	290	(15)
From Egoisme to Individualisme	305	(20)
PART VI What Tocqueville Meant by Democratie
Some Meanings of Democratie	325	(15)
Tocqueville's Return to America	340	(14)
Epilogue: How Many Democracies?	354	(15)
Selected Bibliography	369	(18)
Index	387