Democracy in America by: Alexis de Tocqueville (Translated and Edited by Harvey C. Mansfield & Delba Winthrop)

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) came to America in 1831 to see what a great republic was like. What struck him most was the country's equality of conditions, its democracy. The book he wrote on his return to France, Democracy in America, is both the best ever written on democracy and the best every written on America. It remains the most often quoted book about the United States, not only because it has something to interest and please everyone, but also because it has something to teach everyone.

Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop's new translation of Democracy in America is only the third since the original two-volume work was published in 1835 and 1840. It is a spectacular achievement, capturing the elegance, subtlety, and profundity of Tocqueville's original. Mansfield and Winthrop have restored the nuances of his language, with the expressed goal "to convey Tocqueville's thought as he held it rather than to restate it in comparable terms of today. " The result is a translation with minimal interpretation, avoiding the problem that Tocqueville himself read in the first translation of Democracy in America.

The strength of the translation is only one reason that Mansfield and Winthrop's Democracy in America will become the authoritative edition of the text. Also included is a superb and substantial introduction placing the work and its author in the broader context of the traditions of political philosophy and statesmanship. Together in one volume, the new translation, the introduction, and the translators' annotations of references no longer familiar to us combine to offer the most readable and faithful version of Tocqueville's masterpiece.

As we approach the 160th anniversary of the publication of Democracy in America, Mansfield and Winthrop have provided an additional reason to celebrate. Lavishly prepared and produced, this long-awaited new translation will surely become the authoritative edition of Tocqueville's profound and prescient masterwork.

HARVEY C. MANSFIELD is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University. Political philosopher and author, he is acknowledged as a leading translator of Machiavelli. DELBA WINTROP is Lecturer in Extension and administrator of the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous publications.

Table of Contents

Contents

Editor's Introduction

Suggested Readings

A Note on the Translation

Volume One

Introduction

Part One

1. External Configuration of North America

2. On the point of Departure and Its Importance For the Future of the Anglo-Americans

3. Social State of the Anglo Americans

4. On the Principle of the Sovereignty of the People in America

5. Necessity of Studying What Takes Place in the Particular States before Speaking of the Government of the Union

6. On Judicial Power in the United States and Its Action on Political Society

7. On Political Judgment in the United States

8. On the Federal Constitution

Part Two

1. How One Can Say Strictly That in the United States the People Govern

2. On Parties in the United States

3. On Freedom of the Press in the United States

4. On Political Association in the United States

5. On the Government of Democracy in America

6. What Are the Real Advantages that American Society Derives From the Government of Democracy

7. On the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects

8. On What Tempers the Tyranny of the Majority in the United States

9. On the Principal Causes Tending to Maintain a Democratic Republic in the United States

10. Some Considerations on the Present State and the Probable Future of the Three Races that Inhabit the Territory of the United States

Conclusion

Volume Two

Notice

Part One: Influence of Democracy on the Intellectual Movement In the United States

1. On the Philosophic Method of the Americans

2. On the Principal Source of Beliefs among Democratic Peoples

3. Why the Americans Show More Aptitude and Taste for General Ideas than Their English Fathers

4. Why the Americans Have Never Been as Passionate as the French for General Ideas in Political Matters

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5. How, in the United States, Religion Knows How to Make Use of Democratic Instincts

6. On the Progress of Catholicism in the United States

7. What Makes the Mind of Democratic Peoples Lean toward Pantheism

8. How Equality Suggests to the Americans the Idea of the Indefinite Perfectibility of Man

9. How the Example of the Americans Does Not Prove That a Democratic People Can Have No Aptitude and Taste for the Sciences, Literature, and the Arts

10. Why the Americans Apply Themselves to the Practice of the Sciences Rather than to the Theory

11. In What Spirit the Americans Cultivate the Arts

12. Why the Americans at the Same Time Raise Such Little and Such Great Monuments

13. The Literary Face of Democratic Centuries

14. On the Literary Industry

15. Why the Study of Greek and Latin Literature Is Particularly Useful in Democratic Societies

16. How American Democracy Has Modified the English Language

17. On Some Sources of Poetry in Democratic Nations

18. Why American Writers and Orators Are Often Bombastic

19. Some Observations on the Theater of Democratic Peoples

20. On Some Tendencies Particular to Historians in Democratic Centuries

21. On Parliamentary Eloquence in the United States

Part Two: Influence of Democracy on the Sentiments of the Americans

1. Why Democratic Peoples Show a More Ardent and More Lasting Love for Equality than for Freedom

2. On the Individualism in Democratic Countries

3. How Individualism Is Greater at the End of a Democratic Revolution than Any Other Period

4. How the Americans Combat Individualism with Free Institutions

5. On the Use That the Americans Make of Association in Civil Life

6. On the Relation between Associations and Newspapers

7. Relations between Civil Associations and Political Associations

8 How the Americans Combat Individualism by the Doctrine of Self-Interest Well Understood

9. How the Americans Apply the Doctrine of Self-Interest Well Understood in the Matter of Religion

10. On the Taste for Material Well-Being in America

11. On the Particular Effects That the Love of Material Enjoyment Produces in Democratic Centuries

12. Why Certain Americans Display Such an Exalted Spiritualism

13. Why the Americans Show Themselves So Restive in the Midst of Their Well-Being

14. How the Taste for Material Enjoyments among Americans Is United with Love of Freedom and with Care for Public Affairs

15. How Religious Beliefs at Times Turn the Souls of the Americans toward Immaterial Enjoyments

16. How the Excessive Love of Well-Being Can Be Harmful to Well-Being

17. How in Times of Equality and Doubt It Is Important to Move Back the Object of Human Actions

18. Why among the Americans All Honest Professions Are Reputed Honorable

19. What Makes Almost All Americans Incline toward Industrial Professions

20. How Aristocracy Could Issue from Industry

Part Three: Influence of Democracy on Mores Properly So-Called

1. How Mores Become Milder as Conditions Are Equalized

2. How Democracy Renders the Habitual Relations of the Americans Simpler and Easier

3. Why the Americans Have So Little Oversensitivity in Their Country and Show Themselves to Be So Oversensitive in Ours

4. Consequences of the Preceding Three Chapters

5. How Democracy Modifies the Relations of Servant and Master

6. How Democratic Institutions and Mores Tend to Raise the Price and Shorten the Duration of Leases

7. Influence of Democracy on Wages

8. Influence of Democracy on the Family

9. Education of Girls in the United States

10. How the Girl Is Found beneath the Features of the Wife

11. How Equality of Conditions Contributes to Maintaining Good Mores in America

12. How the Americans Understand the Equality of Man and Woman

13. How Equality Naturally Divides the Americans into a Multitude of Particular Little Societies

14. Some Reflections on American Manners

15. On the Gravity of the Americans and Why It Does Not Prevent Their Often Doing Ill-Considered Things

16. Why the National Vanity of the Americans Is More Restive and Quarrelsome than That of the English

17. How the Aspect of Society in the United States Is at Once Agitated and Monotonous

18. On Honor in the United States and in Democratic Societies

19. Why One Finds So Many Ambitious Men in the United States and So Few Great Ambitions

20. On the Industry in Place-Hunting in Certain Democratic Nations

21. Why Great Revolutionaries Will Become Rare

22. Why Democratic Peoples Naturally Desire Peace and Democratic Armies Naturally [Desire] War

23. Which Is the Most Warlike and the Most Revolutionary Class in Democratic Armies

24. What Makes Democratic Armies Weaker than Other Armies When Entering into a Campaign and More Formidable When War is Prolonged

25. On Discipline in Democratic Armies

26. Some Considerations on War in Democratic Societies

Part Four: On the Influence that Democratic Ideas and Sentiments Exert on Political Society

1. Equality Naturally Gives Men the Taste for Free Institutions

2. That the Ideas of Democratic Peoples in the Matter of Government Are Naturally Favorable to the Constitution of Powers

3. That the Sentiments of Democratic Peoples Are in Accord with Their Ideas to Bring Them to Concentrate Power.

4. On some Particular and Accidental Causes That Serve to Bring a Democratic People to Centralize Power of Turn It Away from That

5. That among European nations of Our Day Sovereign Power Increases Although Sovereigns Are Less Stable

6. What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear

7. Continuation of the Preceding Chapters

8. General View of the Subject