Alexis De Tocqueville

In 1831, the then twenty-seven year old Alexis de Tocqueville, was sent with Gustave de Beaumont to America by the French Government to study and make a report on the American prison system. Over a period of nine months the two traveled all over America making notes not only on the prison systems but on all aspects of American society and government. From these notes, Tocqueville wrote "Democracy in America", an exhaustive analysis of the successes...

Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (De la démocratie en Amérique) is a classic text detailing the United States of the 1830s, showing a primarily favorable view by Tocqueville as he compares it to his native France. Considered to be an important account of the U.S. democratic system, it has become a classic work in the fields of political science and history. It quickly became popular in both the United States and

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A brilliant new translation of de Tocqueville's masterpiece also includes an account of Tocqueville's travels in Michigan among the Iroquois.

Brilliantly and searchingly examines the nature of French society in the years before the Revolution. Why did the Revolution break out? Was it inevitable, and if so, why? How was France really changed by the Revolution? Why did the intellectuals become enemies of the old French state and society? Why was the French nobility so estranged from the French people? Why, in short, were Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette doomed to the guillotines of the Revolution?...