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Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America

Translation by Arthur Goldhammer, exclusive to The Library of America More

Edited by Olivier Zunz

“Tocqueville wrote the bible on democracy.” — The Texas Observer

“This new translation by Goldhammer gets to the heart of Tocqueville’s words.” — Library Journal

Overview
News & Views
Table of Contents

Overview

Interviews Olivier Zunz on Alexis de Tocqueville, “The Man Who Understood Democracy”
July 14, 2022

Interviews Nicholas Lemann: Challenges to American democracy are “ever-present”
February 24, 2021

News Nicholas Lemann: What a functioning democracy would look like
October 27, 2020

Democracy in America (1835–1840) is arguably the most perceptive and influential book ever written about American politics and society. This Library of America volume presents Alexis de Tocqueville’s masterpiece in an entirely new translation, the first to capture fully the precision and grace of his style while providing a rigorous and faithful rendering of his profound ideas and observations.

A young aristocratic lawyer, Tocqueville came to the United States in 1831 with his friend and fellow magistrate Gustave de Beaumont to study American penitentiary systems. During their nine-month visit they conducted interviews with more than 200 people on American politics, law, and social practices. After returning to France, Tocqueville read hundreds of books and documents while reflecting on what his trip had revealed about the “great democratic revolution” that was transforming the Western world.

In Democracy in America he vividly describes the unprecedented “equality of conditions” found in the United States and explores its implications for European society in the emerging modern era. His book provides enduring insight into the political consequences of widespread property ownership, the potential dangers to liberty inherent in majority rule, the importance of civil institutions in an individualistic culture dominated by the pursuit of material self-interest, the influence of the press and the judiciary in American politics, and the vital role of religion in American life, while prophetically examining the widening differences between the northern and southern states.

In “the ideal toward which democratic peoples tend,” Tocqueville writes, men “will be perfectly free, because they will all be entirely equal, and they will all be perfectly equal because they will be entirely free.” But, he warns, their passion for liberty and their passion for equality are unequal: “They want equality in liberty, and if they cannot have it, they want it still in slavery.”

Arthur Goldhammer has translated from the French more than 80 works in history, literature, art history, classical studies, philosophy, psychology, and social science.

Olivier Zunz, volume editor, is Commonwealth Professor of History at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Why the American Century?, Making America Corporate, 1870–1920, and The Changing Face of Inequality, and co-editor of The Tocqueville Reader: A Life in Letters and Politics.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America is kept in print by a gift from the Florence Gould Foundation to the Guardians of American Letters Fund.
News & Views

Interviews Olivier Zunz on Alexis de Tocqueville, “The Man Who Understood Democracy”
July 14, 2022

Interviews Nicholas Lemann: Challenges to American democracy are “ever-present”
February 24, 2021

News Nicholas Lemann: What a functioning democracy would look like
October 27, 2020

News Alexis de Tocqueville collaboration results in long-running partnership—and now, a special seminar
December 18, 2015
Table of Contents

Volume One
Introduction

PART I
Chapter 1: The Outward Configuration of North America
Chapter 2: On the Point of Departure and Its Importance for the Future of the Anglo-Americans
Chapter 3: Social State of the Anglo-Americans
Chapter 4: On the Principle of Popular Sovereignty in America
Chapter 5: Necessity of Studying What Happens in Particular States Before Speaking of the Government of the Union
Chapter 6: On Judicial Power in the United States and Its Effect on Political Society
Chapter 7: On Political Judgment in the United States
Chapter 8: On the Federal Constitution

PART II
Chapter 1: Why It Is Strictly Accurate to Say That in the United States It Is the People Who Govern
Chapter 2: Parties in the United States
Chapter 3: On Freedom of the Press in the United States
Chapter 4: On Political Association in the United States
Chapter 5: On the Government of Democracy in America
Chapter 6: What Are the Real Advantages to American Society of Democratic Government?
Chapter 7: On the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects
Chapter 8: On That Which Tempers the Tyranny of the Majority in the United States
Chapter 9: On the Principal Causes That Tend to Maintain the Democratic Republic in the United States
Chapter 10: Some Considerations Concerning the Present State and Probable Future of the Three Races That Inhabit the Territory of the United States

Volume Two
Preface
PART I: INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRACY ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN INTELLECT
Chapter 1: On the Philosophical Method of the Americans
Chapter 2: On the Principal Source of Beliefs Among Democratic Peoples
Chapter 3: Why the Americans Show More Aptitude and Taste for General Ideas Than Their English Forefathers
Chapter 4: Why the Americans Have Never Been as Passionate as the French About General Ideas in Politics
Chapter 5: How Religion Uses Democratic Instincts in the United States
Chapter 6: On the Progress of Catholicism in the United States
Chapter 7: What Makes the Mind of Democratic Peoples Receptive to Pantheism
Chapter 8: How Democracy Suggests to the Americans the Idea of Man’s Infinite Perfectibility
Chapter 9: How the Example of the Americans Does Not Prove That a Democratic People Can Have No Aptitude for Science, Literature, or the Arts
Chapter 10: Why Americans Devote Themselves More to the Practical Applications of Science Than to the Theory
Chapter 11: In What Spirit Americans Cultivate the Arts
Chapter 12: Why Americans Build Such Insignificant and Such Great Monuments at the Same Time
Chapter 13: The Literary Aspect of Democratic Centuries
Chapter 14: On the Literary Industry
Chapter 15: Why the Study of Greek and Latin Is Particularly Useful in Democratic Societies
Chapter 16: How American Democracy Has Changed the English Language
Chapter 17: On Some Sources of Poetry in Democratic Nations
Chapter 18: Why American Writers and Orators Are Often Bombastic
Chapter 19: Some Observations on the Theater of Democratic Peoples
Chapter 20: On Certain Tendencies Peculiar to Historians in Democratic Centuries
Chapter 21: On Parliamentary Eloquence in the United States

PART II: INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRACY ON THE SENTIMENTS OF THE AMERICANS
Chapter 1: Why Democratic Peoples Show a More Ardent and Enduring Love of Equality Than of Liberty
Chapter 2: On Individualism in Democratic Countries
Chapter 3: How Individualism Is More Pronounced at the End of a Democratic Revolution Than at Any Other Time
Chapter 4: How Americans Combat Individualism with Free Institutions
Chapter 5: On the Use That Americans Make of Association in Civil Life
Chapter 6: On the Relation Between Associations and Newspapers
Chapter 7: Relations Between Civil Associations and Political Associations
Chapter 8: How Americans Combat Individualism with the Doctrine of Self-Interest Properly Understood
Chapter 9: How Americans Apply the Doctrine of Self-Interest Properly Understood in the Matter of Religion
Chapter 10: On the Taste for Material Well-Being in America
Chapter 11: On the Particular Effects of the Love of Material Gratifications in Democratic Centuries
Chapter 12: Why Certain Americans Exhibit Such Impassioned Spiritualism
Chapter 13: Why Americans Seem So Restless in the Midst of Their Well-Being
Chapter 14: How the Taste for Material Gratifications Is Combined in America with Love of Liberty and Concern About Public Affairs
Chapter 15: How Religious Beliefs Sometimes Divert the American Soul Toward Immaterial Gratifications
Chapter 16: How Excessive Love of Well-Being Can Impair It
Chapter 17: How, in Times of Equality and Doubt, It Is Important to Set Distant Goals for Human Actions
Chapter 18: Why All Respectable Occupations Are Reputed Honorable Among Americans
Chapter 19: Why Nearly All Americans Are Inclined to Enter Industrial Occupations
Chapter 20: How Industry Could Give Rise to an Aristocracy

PART III: INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRACY ON MORES PROPERLY SO-CALLED
Chapter 1: How Mores Become Milder as Conditions Become More Equal
Chapter 2: How Democracy Simplifies and Eases Habitual Relations Among Americans
Chapter 3: Why Americans Are So Slow to Take Offense in Their Country and So Quick to Take Offense in Ours
Chapter 4: Consequences of the Three Previous Chapters
Chapter 5: How Democracy Modifies Relations Between Servant and Master
Chapter 6: How Democratic Institutions and Mores Tend to Raise Prices and Shorten the Terms of Leases
Chapter 7: Influence of Democracy on Wages
Chapter 8: Influence of Democracy on the Family
Chapter 9: Raising Girls in the United States
Chapter 10: How the Traits of the Girl Can Be Divined in the Wife
Chapter 11: How Equality of Conditions Helps to Maintain Good Morals in America
Chapter 12: How the Americans Understand the Equality of Man and Woman
Chapter 13: How Equality Naturally Divides the Americans into a Multitude of Small Private Societies
Chapter 14: Some Reflections on American Manners
Chapter 15: On the Gravity of Americans and Why It Does Not Prevent Them from Acting Rashly
Chapter 16: Why the National Vanity of the Americans Is More Restless and Argumentative Than That of the English
Chapter 17: How Society in the United States Seems Both Agitated and Monotonous
Chapter 18: On Honor in the United States and in Democratic Societies
Chapter 19: Why There Are So Many Ambitious Men and So Few Great Ambitions in the United States
Chapter 20: On Place-Hunting in Certain Democratic Nations
Chapter 21: Why Great Revolutions Will Become Rare
Chapter 22: Why Democratic Peoples Naturally Desire Peace and Democratic Armies Naturally Desire War
Chapter 23: Which Class in Democratic Armies Is the Most Warlike and Revolutionary
Chapter 24: What Makes Democratic Armies Weaker Than Other Armies at the Start of a Campaign but More Formidable in Protracted Warfare
Chapter 25: On Discipline in Democratic Armies
Chapter 26: Some Remarks on War in Democratic Societies

PART IV: ON THE INFLUENCE THAT DEMOCRATIC IDEAS AND SENTIMENTS EXERT ON POLITICAL SOCIETY
Chapter 1: Equality Naturally Gives Men a Taste for Free Institutions
Chapter 2: Why the Ideas of Democratic Peoples About Government Naturally Favor the Concentration of Power
Chapter 3: How the Sentiments of Democratic Peoples Accord with Their Ideas to Bring About a Concentration of Power
Chapter 4: Concerning Certain Particular and Accidental Causes That Either Lead a Democratic People to Centralize Power or Divert Them From It
Chapter 5: How Sovereign Power in Today’s European Nations Is Increasing, Although Sovereigns Are Less Stable
Chapter 6: What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear
Chapter 7: Continuation of the Preceding Chapters
Chapter 8: General View of the Subject
Tocqueville’s Notes

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