Customer Reviews

Democracy in America (Penguin Classics)

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This is a classic book. One that belongs on the bookshelf of any person with a serious interest in civil society and politics in America. This book comes in the familiar classic Penguin style binding which means it's an affordable but solid paperback which will still be in one piece even after years of thumbing your way through it (and I think I'm somehow addicted/comforted by the smell of their pages).

But the one unforgivable defect of this 900+ page edition is that it contains no index!! de Tockville wrote lots of chapters with descriptive titles, so you can kind of find your way around, but still it substantially diminishes the usefulness of the text.

This translation of Democracy in America is the one to buy. As you would expect from a Penguin edition, the typeface is clear and the paper is of good quality. The book as an object is a pleasure to hold and inviting to read.
But the real joy of this edition is that it is the only one to contain the two short essays that are tucked away at the back. It is worth beginning the book with these essays. They work in their own right but they also serve well as an introduction to the America of De Tocqueville.
'Excursion to Lake Oneida',the second essay, is a beautiful vignette of that time and that place; a rare gem that deserves to be read more widely.
If you intend to read De Tocqueville, read this translation. It is lucid, informative, entertaining and hugely readable. I thoroughly enjoyed travelling through America with De Tocqueville, and I will carry the story of the 'Excursion to Lake Oneida' with me for along time.

Alexis de Tocqueville looks at the United States and examines its political, social, and cultural intricacies in DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA AND TWO ESSAYS ON AMERICA. This edition of DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA is well introduced and translated by Gerald Bevan and Isaac Kramnick. This is not a basic travelogue of a French aristocrat -Intellect - statesman's journey through the American wilderness in a span of nine months, but it is a significant documentary that compares and contrasts European Aristocracy to American Democracy. At the time that Tocqueville wrote DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, both Europe and the United States experienced an enormous shift in its political and social structure. On the US side, several events occurred, Andrew Jackson was president, the Anti-Slavery movement, Indian Removal commenced, immigration was on the rise, and the industrial age was emerging; for the French and European side, the Revolution of 1830 and autocracy took precedence as well as a radical shake-up of the social class. Possibly, for Tocqueville his travels to the United States served as a respite from France's revolutionary tendencies, and the opportunity to observe US history in the making. In terms of chronology, 55 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and 30 years before the Civil War. In essence, Tocqueville's accounts bear much significance to how the United States progressed, and where it was headed.

Tocqueville writes and thinks in a Jeffersonian stance. With Bevan's translation, the book is readable. Throughout DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA Tocqueville suggests that productivity cannot occur while a man remains idle, and that action must take place in some form or another - the rule of law or through communication. No doubt, this annotates Jeffersonian politics and ideology. However, the basic premise throughout the book concentrates on the difference between Democracy and Aristocracy and their relationships to the social classes of each respective ideology, and how each accomplished and achieved effectiveness. Tocqueville looked toward America as a model to post-revolutionary France (back cover of the Penguin edition), and one may say that this was an exchange of politics and ideas that the United States had done a century before; this was a shared entity.

DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA should be required reading. However, with its large volume, two volumes, small increments should be divided into separate reading sessions in order to understand the gist of Tocqueville's purpose of critiquing America's political system. The most exemplary aspect of the book is how Tocqueville speaks rhetorically in a no nonsense way as well as its timelessness, which will further entice readers to read on. As an added treat, the appendices and the two most important essays of the book pertaining to Tocqueville's encounters with the Iroquois and Chippeway Indians should not be overlooked.

I can't say anything new about a book this famous, so I will just give my personal opinion about why and how to read it. Why: because it is a timeless description of how American democracy works, in both theory and practice. As to how to read it, I have this book sitting next to the Bible on my bedside bookshelf, and I read in the same way. I have been reading Democracy in America in a piecemeal way over several decades, in small installments, with time in between to think and ponder and question what I have just read. It's a book that doesn't give you a straightforward narrative that's easy to follow. Rather, each section has its own character and focuses on one facet of the rough-cut jewel we call democracy. You could read Democracy in America all the way through, but that would be an endurance test, not necessarily a way to understand the wealth of ideas it contains. Some parts of the book are dry and technical, as when de Tocqueville describes township government in microscopic detail. He was a devoted student of political theory who took those matters very seriously, so he gave his readers all the data they might need in order to form a clear idea of how American intitutions operated. But he was also very good at lively observations of the social scene and the natural wonders he encountered in America. These are the parts of the book that really spring to life and make this book much more than a political science text.

To go back to the Bible/de Tocqueville analogy, Democracy in America is a book in which any reader can find a quotation (or misquotation) to support any point of view. However, it's only by sitting down and actually reading de Tocqueville's words in their proper context that you will understand the real greatness of this book.

This is a truly amazing book.

As noted above, de Tocqueville predicted both American and Russian ascendency over one hundred years before they actually occured.

However, beyond that, de Tocqueville applied a keen and discerning to then emergent trends in the United States and where they would lead. For example:

--On Slavery...de Tocqueville noted the inherent problems with extracting work from people who themselves were not compensated for doing the work;

--On North/South relations...de Tocqueville recognized that its reliance on slave labor put the South at a competitive advantage relative to the North in terms of developing a strong economic infrastructure;

--On the fate of African Americans...de Tocqueville recognized that if revolution was to occur in the United States, the fate of African Americans would play critically in it because once the process of giving people an equal stake in society was started it would have a self propogating effect;

--On the status of women...de Tocqueville though he was more careful here to hedge his bets allowed for the idea that the power of equality would eventually include American women as well;

--On the future...de Tocqueville perhaps at his most prescient recognized that equality could be a recipe for government either of the people or alternatively a dictatorship imposed on those same people.

This last observation is perhaps still most salient for our times as we come to see that even an oligarchy can be a dictatorship. Maybe even all governments, however started, are ultimately destined to oligarchy, a status that will change only when enough of the right excluded demand a change and in so doing start the process all over again.

However, the observations listed here in no way exhaust this book's insight. Indeed, this book is uniquely resistant to Cliff's Notes types of discussions. For this reason, there can be no substitute to actually reading it and seeing for yourself just how prescient and amazing de Tocqueville actually was.

As a sat to write this review I randomly opened my copy of Democracy in a page with this quote that I had highlighted: "When the taste for physical gratifications among [democratic people] has grown more rapidly than their education and their experience of free institutions, the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint at the sight of the new possessions they are about to obtain. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune they lose sight of the close connection that exists between the private fortune of each and the prosperity of all. It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. The discharge of political duties appears to them to be a troublesome impediment which diverts them from their occupations and business. [...] These people think they are following the principle of self-interest, but the idea they entertain of that principle is a very crude one; and the better to look after what they call their own business, they neglect their chief business, which is to remain their own masters". This is a small sample of what you find in Democracy... It is a superb book, with timeless truths about America and about democracy in general. I read the Everyman's Library edition by Knopf, and utterly enjoyed it: good quality paper, print, translation (based on Francis Bowen's), index. Don't rely on what others tell you about the contents of this marvelous book--dive in with a pencil handy to highlight the many good quotes and enjoy!

A wonderful study that reminds us of what America was meant to be while entertaining us with insightful, balanced, often prophetic, and provocative observations of our shortcomings. It is a record that reminds us of our better angels and calls us back to the high ideals that made America great. A reminder of a simpler but nobler time like a time-traveller's log of America's seedling ideals of a democratic-republic. Mr. de Tocqueville will help you regain your inner American and restore your faith in what America can be when she is cognizant of her founding principles.

De Tocqueville was simply of one of the great social scientists writing about America and Democracy. From reading the book I deduced that De Tocqueville was a social scientist before Marx! He compares European culture and government with the fledgling culture and democracy he observes in America. He is very much impressed with what he sees taking place in America in the 1830's and hopes it will spread to Europe. He at first believed that America's prosperity was simply due to geography and their distance from powerful neighbors, he abandons this idea after his visit to America. He comes to realize that the West is not being peopled "by new European immigrants to America, but by Americans who he believes have no adversity to taking risks". De Tocqueville comes to see that Americans are the most broadly educated and politically advanced people in the world and one of the reasons for the success of our form of government. He also foretells America's industrial preeminence and strength through the unfettered spread of ideas and human industry.

De Tocqueville also saw the insidious damage that the institution of slavery was causing the country and predicted some 30 years before the Civil War that slavery would probable cause the states to fragment from the union. He also the emergence of stronger states rights over the power of the federal government. He held fast to his belief that the greatest danger to democracy was the trend toward the concentration of power by the federal government. He predicted wrongly that the union would probably break up into 2 or 3 countries because of regional interests and differences. This idea is the only one about America that he gets wrong. Despite some of his misgivings, De Tocqueville, saw that democracy is an "inescapable development" of the modern world. The arguments in the "Federalist Papers" were greater than most people realized. He saw a social revolution coming that continues throughout the world today.

De Tocqueville realizes at the very beginning of the "industrial revolution" how industry, centralization and democracy strengthened each other and moved forward together. I am convinced that De Tocqueville is still the preeminent observer of America but is also the father of social science. A must read for anyone interested in American history, political philosophy or the social sciences.

In Part 1, de Tocqueville writes a constant stream of aphorisms, quotes, pithy remarks and general and specific observations about the American experience. Like a double-barreled shotgun blast, some of the pellets are going to find their mark and a few are going to go astray. Overall though it is well worth the read. Seldom does he get too bogged down in any one topic and his style cuts through to the essentials, leaving details for his footnotes.

Part 2 is a more general philosophical work, more a rumination on the passing away of the aristocratic age and the institution of the democratic one. Some of his observations are still insightful and relevant, and his outsider's perspective on both the strengths and weakness of democracy bear reading, thought and reflection. Are his observations still relevant today? Let me quote a few and you be the judge.

* "If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority" (p 311).

* "Scarcely any question arises in the United States which does not become, sooner or later, a subject of judicial debate" (p 323).

* "if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them" (p 868)

* "The foremost, or indeed the sole, condition which is required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality, or to get men to believe you love it. Thus the science of despotism, which was once so complex, is simplified, and reduced as it were to a single principle" (p 852).

* "the concentration of power and the subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance" (p 849).

* "I readily admit that public tranquility is a great good, but at the same time I cannot forget that all nations have been enslaved by being kept in good order" (p 668).

* "they must know that liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith" (p 13). "Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot" (p 355).

* "there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune" (p 32).

* "there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality in freedom" (p 59)

* "In England the Parliament has the acknowledged right to modify the constitution; as, therefore, the constitution may undergo perpetual changes, it does not in reality exist" (p 111).

* "In the estimation of a democracy, a government is not a benefit but a necessary evil" (p 238).

* "There is another species of attachment to a country which is more rational than the one we have been describing. It is perhaps less generous and less ardent, but it is more fruitful and more lasting; it is coeval with the spread of knowledge, it is nurtured by the laws, it grows by the exercise of civil, rights, and, in the end, it is confounded with the personal interest of the citizen. A man comprehends the influence which the prosperity of his country has upon his welfare; he is aware that the laws authorize him to contribute his assistance to that prosperity, and he labors to promote as a portion of his interest in the first place, and as a portion of his right in the second" (p 279).

* "One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contradictory principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic" (p 541).

* "The advantages which freedom brings are only shown by length of time; and it is always easy to mistake the cause in which they originate" (p 617).

* "they call for equality in freedom; but if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery" (p 619).

* "But men will never establish any equality with which they can be contented. Whatever efforts a people may make, they will never succeed in reducing all the conditions of society to a perfect level" (pp 663-664).

I pick up this book just in accident. I would like to gain some knowledge in the democracy here and fortunately I get the right book.
The book in detail explains what was the social situation before America was built. From different aspects, the author told and justified "how and why" on the political/law/administration systems in America.
The author's comments on the regional democracy (in locality) is very true.