Tocqueville: A Very Short Introduction
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- ISBN13: 9780195175394
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Product Description
No one has ever described American democracy with more accurate insight or more very much than Alexis de Tocqueville. After meeting with Americans on wide travels in the United States, and intense study of documents and authorities, he authored the landmark Democracy in America, publishing its two volumes in 1835 and 1840. Ever since, this book has been the best source for every serious attempt to know America and democracy itself. Yet Tocqueville himself remains a mystery behind the elegance of his style.
Now one of our leading authorities on Tocqueville clarifies him in this splendid new entry in Oxford’s acclaimed Very Fleeting Introduction series. Harvey Mansfield addresses his theme as a thinker, clearly and incisively exploring Tocqueville’s writings–not only his masterpiece, but also his secret Recollections, proposed for posterity alone, and his unfinished work on his native France, The Ancient Regime and the Revolution. Tocqueville was a liberal, Mansfield writes, but not of the usual sort. The many fundamentals of his life establish expression in his thought: his aristocratic ancestry, his ventures in politics, his voyages abroad, his hopes and fears for America, and his disappointment with France. All his writings show a passion for political liberty and insistence on human greatness. Perhaps most vital, he saw liberty not in theories, but in the practice of self-government in America. Ever an opponent of abstraction, he offered an analysis that forces us to consider what we really do in our politics–suggesting that theory itself may be an enemy of freedom. And that, Mansfield writes, makes him a vitally vital thinker for today.
Translator of an authoritative edition of Democracy in America, Harvey Mansfield here offers the fruit of decades of research and reflection in a clear, insightful, and wonderfully compact introduction.
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It is regularly the case that we need to rely outsiders for the most honest and insightful views of ourselves. In the 1830s, America was a young country, and yet it was the oldest continuously running democracy in the world. As such it was a source of a lot of fascination for philosophers and social thinkers. Aside from homegrown thinkers, who had a lot of vested interest in presenting the young democracy in the best light possible and justifying its merits, a handful of foreigners took keen interest in this young country as well. Among these the most legendary one has remained Alexis de Tocqueville. He was a young Frenchman from an aristocratic family tree who journeyed widely throughout America and wrote about his observations and insight in “Democracy in America.” The book has been considered a classic ever since, and has been used and quoted by intellectuals and politicians of all sorts of ideological persuasions.
Tocqueville was an ideal observer of American society and political life. Although from an aristocratic family tree, he was extremely sympathetic to democracy in all of its forms. Nonetheless, he was keenly aware of the limitations that democracy places on the political process and the fragility of democracies in their early incipient years. This very fleeting introduction explores some of the ways that Tocqueville formed his conclusions, and the political and social circumstances that shaped his worldview.
Harvey Mansfield is a brilliant writer and intellectual. It is such a pleasure to read anything by him, and this book is no exception. His breath of knowledge and highly refined sensibilities make this book in a class of its own within this “Very Fleeting Introduction” series. This is a very enlightening, insightful and illuminating read about one of the most legendary public intellectuals of all time. I highly recommend it.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5