Tocqueville on American Character: Why Tocqueville's Brilliant Exploration of the American Spirit is as Vital and Important Today as It Was Nearly Two Hundred Years Ago [Hardcover]

Michael A. Ledeen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312252315 | ISBN-13: 978-0312252311 | Publication Date: July 14, 2000 | Edition: 1st

In 1831, Alexis De Tocqueville, a twenty-six-year-old French aristocrat, spent nine months travelling across the United States. From the East Coast to the frontier, from the Canadian border to New Orleans, Tocqueville observed the American people and the revolutionary country they'd created. His celebrated Democracy in America, the most quoted work on America ever written, presented the new Americans with a degree of understanding no one had accomplished before or has since. Astonished at the pace of daily life and stimulated by people at all levels of society, Tocqueville recognized that Americans were driven by a series of internal conflicts: simultaneously religious and materialistic; individualistic and yet deeply involved in community affairs; isolationist and interventionist; pragmatic and ideological.

Noted author Michael Ledeen takes a fresh look at Tocqueville's insights into our national psyche and asks whether Americans' national character, which Tocqueville believed to be wholly admirable, has fallen into moral decay and religious indifference.

Michael Ledeen's sparkling new exploration has some surprising answers and provides a lively new look at a time when character is at the center of our national debate.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The subtitle is incredibly long, but Tocqueville on American Character is fairly short: 209 pages of text, and in relatively large print. It's a long essay on a man and his vital observations. Writes Michael Ledeen: "No one ever understood us so well as Tocqueville, which is why every generation of Americans has felt obliged to come to grips with his remarkable insights into our character." It's almost impossible to understand the American psyche without reference to Tocqueville, a French aristocrat whose Democracy in America may be the most widely read and appreciated book on the subject. "No author, before or since, has so provocatively challenged us with our own highest ideals, and simultaneously pointed to our most perilous shortcomings," writes Ledeen. "No one has so clearly identified the political beliefs and national passions that set us apart from the rest of the world, or so deeply probed the tensions, paradoxes, contradictions, and anxieties that make Americans the most revolutionary people on earth."

Yet Tocqueville traveled to the United States 30 years before the Civil War. Do his lessons still apply? More than ever before, writes Ledeen, whose book is both penetrating and accessible. "No one can be considered an educated person without having grappled with Tocqueville's profound inquiry into the American character," he says. Well, his book is a nifty way to grapple with Tocqueville without having to read the much, much longer Democracy in America. Ledeen consciously writes for a modern audience. He's explicit in telling readers why Tocqueville matters today, and how his 19th-century wisdom can live on to inform debates about everything from the purpose of religion in public life to the proper role of government. Tocqueville on American Character is a special book; upon completing it, readers won't just think they've received an education--they'll actually feel brighter. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

Ledeen (Machiavelli on Modern Leadership), a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, turns his attention to the French aristocrat who visited America in the 1830s and produced the wildly popular and classic travelogue-cum-philosophical essay Democracy in America. Ledeen argues that Tocqueville's observations about America are just as valid and relevant today as they were 160 years ago. Principal among these observations, according to Ledeen, is that, although materialistic, Americans are also extremely religious; further, he argues that American democracy feeds American religiosity and vice versa. Ledeen cautions that in the last few decades, Americans have embraced a rigid distinction between religious and public life, one that would have been unrecognizable in Tocqueville's day. Tocqueville, he asserts, saw the dangers inherent in individualism and applauded Americans for balancing their atomizing tendencies by joining voluntary associations. Ledeen simply echoes this, failing to address the declining role of such associations in American life. This volume ultimately disappointsAthere is far more summary of Tocqueville than analysis of contemporary America, and what analysis Ledeen does offer isn't compelling (such as his garbled claim that Americans' participation in voluntary associations has something to do with a love of the emotional and therapeutic). His argument is further marred by a faint jingoism ("Americans love big challenges"; "It's dangerous, even fatal, to underestimate us"). Readers would do well to skip this unconvincing survey and read Tocqueville's original text. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Truman Talley Books; 1st edition (July 14, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312252315
• ISBN-13: 978-0312252311
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,701,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The importance of preserving the 'American spirit', August 22, 2000

By 

Michael J. Nyilis (Naples, Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tocqueville on American Character: Why Tocqueville's Brilliant Exploration of the American Spirit is as Vital and Important Today as It Was Nearly Two Hundred Years Ago (Hardcover)

My first impression upon reading this book is that it would make the perfect college text: concise, well-written, filled with wisdom, witty, and highly relevant to what most Americans care about--or should. Naturally, college professors will find themselves intrigued by this volume, maybe even be tempted to read it--but extremely unlikely to ever add it to their required reading lists. The reason is simple: Ledeen makes a strong case for the proposition that certain aspects of liberalism undermine the American character, a contention that most academics would either dispute with moral indignation--or argue would be a good thing. Readers would like to know if, first, Tocqueville accurately captures the American spirit--the character of her people--and, second, if Ledeen accurately represents the views of Tocqueville. On the first, I cannot think of a more discerning and brilliant commentator on the mentality of Americans, which is, of course, why we still read him and love to quote him. As for the second, it is clear that Ledeen is sensitive to even the most subtle nuances of Tocqueville's thinking, and he returns to Tocqueville's actual words again and again. Ledeen's chapter on "Religious Faith Anchored by Secular Institutions" is a superb analysis of the role religious faith in a secular society can play, and how it is vital to our character. His chapter on "Apostles of Freedom Tempted by Luxurious Tyranny" is exceptionally insightful and billiant. Ledeen is one of those large-minded conservatives who is deeply concerned about what he calls "our collective national mission," who celebrates what is best about America, but despairs at the forces which he sees as undermining it. Nearly every page contains useful insights and well-argued observations about what is happening to the American character. Tocqueville has found an commentator worthy of his brilliance.

33 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sloppy Implementation of a Brilliant Book Concept, December 13, 2000

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tocqueville on American Character: Why Tocqueville's Brilliant Exploration of the American Spirit is as Vital and Important Today as It Was Nearly Two Hundred Years Ago (Hardcover)

Many people in America have not read Alexis de Tocqueville's brilliant analysis of the American character, as he experienced on his trip to the United States in 1826. That's too bad, because his work brilliantly defines what is different about American society from any other one on Earth. As an aristocratic Frenchman, perhaps it was easier for him to see us as we are, by seeing how different we are from Europeans, Canadians, and Mexicans.

The concept of the book is to summarize de Tocqueville, and then to test his observations against what has happened since. I have not seen that done before, and looked forward to seeing the results.

When Michael Ledeen is describing de Tocqueville, or political thinking of that time, the book is superb. If the book had stopped there, it would have been a five star book. So if you want to read it for that background, you will be well rewarded. Alternatively, you can read de Tocqueville directly. I would prefer the original, but either would serve.

In his contemporary commentary on America, Mr. Ledeen is basically giving us a political sociology analysis. For such work, it is helpful to have facts that look from various perspectives and dimensions. The first problem with this book is that Mr. Ledeen prefers to give just one anecdote or one fact, and build his observations from that. That approach works well for stimulating debate, but falls short of being convincing about our unique character. I found this approach very suspect.

Second, Mr. Ledeen prefers to always come at the problem from the perspective of being paranoid about losing our ideal character. I think his point of view is a valid one, but there are others. For example, one can also talk optimistically about how we routinely avoid certain traps (like having the best people decide to become politicians, or failing to use private institutions to serve important social needs). Those other perspectives are missing. The result is a book that seems like an anti-Democrat (as in the political party) rant in many places.

The third problem is that the book seems to have been weakly researched. Facts and details seem just a little out of focus, as though drawn from long-remembered impressions, rather than real knowledge or research.

For example, I rarely see Jack Welch's (the famous CEO of General Electric) name misspelled in any publication or book. But in this book, he was "Welsh" all the way through. Now, I believe Mr. Welch is an Irishman by background, so I don't think it's an accurate description of his familial history, either.

Then, the book goes on to describe his Mr. Welch's pronouncements of 1980 as creative destruction. The ideas that Mr. Welch advocated in that year were well established and broadly in application throughout American business when he pursued them. He primarily was advocating that the company stay in businesses in which it could be the leader or have the second place in market share. He solved the company's deficiencies by simply selling the lower market share operations, not by destroying them. For example, Utah International (a mining operation) was sold within months of his taking the helm. It was only later that Mr. Welch began to downsize the remaining General Electric operations to get rid of excess layers of bureaucatic fat.

The ideas Mr. Welch advocated later in his career were actually more important to General Electric's success, such as freeing General Electric Capital to be very entrepreneurial, focusing on leadership training, and implementing Six Sigma. So at best, Mr. Welch is misdescribed due to misfocus in Mr. Ledeen's example. At worst, Mr. Ledeen simply doesn't seem to grasp the example. There are several other sections of the book that display these kinds of fundamental flaws about contemporary observations.

As a result, I have to grade the analysis of current society somewhere in the two to three star range, creating an average of three and a half or four stars for the whole book.

After you finish reading this book, test its thesis by thinking about the evolution of American business. De Tocqueville did not have too much to say about that institution. Mr. Ledeen has somewhat more to say, suggesting it is an inheritor of the free association tendency of Americans. But I wonder if it is not something more. Is it not the case that business is replacing many of the other institutions in its effectiveness and broader social focus? Now that theme would make an interesting book.

Guard your liberty jealously, from all who threat it . . . including a greedy or thoughtless majority, sloppy thinking, or corrupt leaders. Trust must be earned.

35 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes, September 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Tocqueville on American Character: Why Tocqueville's Brilliant Exploration of the American Spirit is as Vital and Important Today as It Was Nearly Two Hundred Years Ago (Hardcover)

This is a fine book that makes accessible Tocqueville's writings. Clinton-lovers won't like this book, because Toqueville would have thought Clinton the worst thing that could happen to America, "A leader that gives Americans prosperity will have nothing more demanded of him." Which is why Americans have so stupidly overlooked Clinton treasonously selling our military technology to China, in exchange for campaign donations, as Ledeen illustrates clearly. An important book.