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Author : Kevin Butterfield Publisher : University of Chicago Press Page : 320 pages File Size : 47,7 Mb Release : 2015-11-19 Category : History ISBN : 9780226297088
The Making of Tocqueville's America by Kevin Butterfield Pdf
Alexis de Tocqueville famously said that Americans were "forever forming associations" and saw in this evidence of a new democratic sociability--though that seemed to be at odds with the distinctively American drive for individuality. Yet Kevin Butterfield sees these phenomena as tightly related: in joining groups, early Americans recognized not only the rights and responsibilities of citizenship but the efficacy of the law. A group, Butterfield says, isn't merely the people who join it; it's the mechanisms and conventions that allow it to function and, where necessary, to regulate itself and its members. Tocqueville, then, was wrong to see associations as the training grounds of democracy, where people learned to honor one another's voices and perspectives--rather, they were the training grounds for increasingly formal and legalistic relations among people. They were where Americans learned to treat one another impersonally.
The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America by James T. Schleifer Pdf
It is impossible fully to understand the American experience apart from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Moreover, it is impossible fully to appreciate Tocqueville by assuming that he brought to his visitation to America, or to the writing of his great work, a fixed philosophical doctrine. James T. Schleifer documents where, when, and under what influences Tocqueville wrote different sections of his work. In doing so, Schleifer discloses the mental processes through which Tocqueville passed in reflecting on his experiences in America and transforming these reflections into the most original and revealing book ever written about Americans. For the first time the evolution of a number of Tocqueville's central themes--democracy, individualism, centralization, despotism--emerges into clear relief. As Russell B. Nye has observed, "Schleifer's study is a model of intellectual history, an account of the intertwining of a man, a set of ideas, and the final product, a book." The Liberty Fund second edition includes a new preface by the author and an epilogue, "The Problem of the Two Democracies." James T. Schleifer is Professor of History and Director of the Gill Library at the College of New Rochelle
Kaledin offers an original combination of biography, character study and wide-ranging analysis of Toqueville's 'Democracy in America', bringing new light to that classic work.
Author : James T. Schleifer Publisher : Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press Page : 424 pages File Size : 54,6 Mb Release : 1980 Category : Political Science ISBN : UVA:X000088566
The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America by James T. Schleifer Pdf
It is impossible fully to understand the American experience apart from Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America." Moreover, it is impossible fully to appreciate Tocqueville by assuming that he brought to his visitation to America, or to the writing of his great work, a fixed philosophical doctrine. James T. Schleifer documents where, when, and under what influences Tocqueville wrote different sections of his work. In doing so, Schleifer discloses the mental processes through which Tocqueville passed in reflecting on his experiences in America and transforming these reflections into the most original and revealing book ever written about Americans. For the first time the evolution of a number of Tocqueville's central themes--democracy, individualism, centralization, despotism--emerges into clear relief. As Russell B. Nye has observed, "Schleifer's study is a model of intellectual history, an account of the intertwining of a man, a set of ideas, and the final product, a book." The Liberty Fund second edition includes a new preface by the author and an epilogue, "The Problem of the Two Democracies."
Democracy in America (Complete) by Alexis de Tocqueville Pdf
Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by giving a certain direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to the laws; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar habits to the governed. I speedily perceived that the influence of this fact extends far beyond the political character and the laws of the country, and that it has no less empire over civil society than over the Government; it creates opinions, engenders sentiments, suggests the ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not produce. The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated. I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined that I discerned something analogous to the spectacle which the New World presented to me. I observed that the equality of conditions is daily progressing towards those extreme limits which it seems to have reached in the United States, and that the democracy which governs the American communities appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe. I hence conceived the idea of the book which is now before the reader. It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is going on amongst us; but there are two opinions as to its nature and consequences. To some it appears to be a novel accident, which as such may still be checked; to others it seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history. Let us recollect the situation of France seven hundred years ago, when the territory was divided amongst a small number of families, who were the owners of the soil and the rulers of the inhabitants; the right of governing descended with the family inheritance from generation to generation; force was the only means by which man could act on man, and landed property was the sole source of power. Soon, however, the political power of the clergy was founded, and began to exert itself: the clergy opened its ranks to all classes, to the poor and the rich, the villein and the lord; equality penetrated into the Government through the Church, and the being who as a serf must have vegetated in perpetual bondage took his place as a priest in the midst of nobles, and not infrequently above the heads of kings. The different relations of men became more complicated and more numerous as society gradually became more stable and more civilized. Thence the want of civil laws was felt; and the order of legal functionaries soon rose from the obscurity of the tribunals and their dusty chambers, to appear at the court of the monarch, by the side of the feudal barons in their ermine and their mail. Whilst the kings were ruining themselves by their great enterprises, and the nobles exhausting their resources by private wars, the lower orders were enriching themselves by commerce. The influence of money began to be perceptible in State affairs. The transactions of business opened a new road to power, and the financier rose to a station of political influence in which he was at once flattered and despised. Gradually the spread of mental acquirements, and the increasing taste for literature and art, opened chances of success to talent; science became a means of government, intelligence led to social power, and the man of letters took a part in the affairs of the State. The value attached to the privileges of birth decreased in the exact proportion in which new paths were struck out to advancement. In the eleventh century nobility was beyond all price; in the thirteenth it might be purchased; it was conferred for the first time in 1270; and equality was thus introduced into the Government by the aristocracy itself.
Author : James T. Schleifer Publisher : University of Chicago Press Page : 213 pages File Size : 47,7 Mb Release : 2012-04-02 Category : History ISBN : 9780226737058
The Chicago Companion to Tocqueville's Democracy in America by James T. Schleifer Pdf
One of the greatest books ever to be written on the United States, Democracy in America continues to find new readers who marvel at the lasting insights Alexis de Tocqueville had into our nation and its political culture. The work is, however, as challenging as it is important; its arguments can be complex and subtle, and its sheer length can make it difficult for any reader, especially one coming to it for the first time, to grasp Tocqueville’s meaning. The Chicago Companion to Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” is the first book written expressly to help general readers and students alike get the most out of this seminal work. Now James T. Schleifer, an expert on Tocqueville, has provided the background and information readers need in order to understand Tocqueville’s masterwork. In clear and engaging prose, Schleifer explains why Democracy in America is so important, how it came to be written, and how different generations of Americans have interpreted it since its publication. He also presents indispensable insight on who Tocqueville was, his trip to America, and what he meant by equality, democracy, and liberty. Drawing upon his intimate knowledge of Tocqueville’s papers and manuscripts, Schleifer reveals how Tocqueville’s ideas took shape and changed even in the course of writing the book. At the same time, Schleifer provides a detailed glossary of key terms and key passages, all accompanied by generous citations to the relevant pages in the University of Chicago Press Mansfield/Winthrop translation. TheChicago Companion will serve generations of readers as an essential guide to both the man and his work.
Tocqueville's Discovery of America by Leo Damrosch Pdf
Alexis de Tocqueville is more quoted than read; commentators across the political spectrum invoke him as an oracle who defined America and its democracy for all times. But in fact his masterpiece, Democracy in America, was the product of a young man's open-minded experience of America at a time of rapid change. In Tocqueville's Discovery of America, the prizewinning biographer Leo Damrosch retraces Tocqueville's nine-month journey through the young nation in 1831–1832, illuminating how his enduring ideas were born of imaginative interchange with America and Americans, and painting a vivid picture of Jacksonian America. Damrosch shows that Tocqueville found much to admire in the dynamism of American society and in its egalitarian ideals. But he was offended by the ethos of grasping materialism and was convinced that the institution of slavery was bound to give rise to a tragic civil war. Drawing on documents and letters that have never before appeared in English, as well as on a wide range of scholarship, Tocqueville's Discovery of America brings the man, his ideas, and his world to startling life.
Author : James T. Schleifer Publisher : University of Chicago Press Page : 213 pages File Size : 50,8 Mb Release : 2012-05-04 Category : History ISBN : 9780226737034
The Chicago Companion to Tocqueville's Democracy in America by James T. Schleifer Pdf
Now James T. Schleifer, an expert on Tocqueville, has provided the background and information readers need in order to understand Tocqueville's masterwork. In clear and engaging prose, Schleifer explains why Democracy in America is so important, how it came to be written, and how different generations of Americans have interpreted it since its publication. He also presents indispensable insight on who Tocqueville was, his trip to America, and what he meant by equality, democracy, and liberty.
A remarkable collection of charming and eloquent letters that contain the seeds of Tocqueville’s later masterful account of American democracy Young Alexis de Tocqueville arrived in the United States for the first time in May 1831, commissioned by the French government to study the American prison system. For the next nine months he and his companion, Gustave de Beaumont, traveled and observed not only prisons but also the political, economic, and social systems of the early republic. Along the way, they frequently reported back to friends and family members in France. This book presents the first translation of the complete letters Tocqueville wrote during that seminal journey, accompanied by excerpts from Beaumont’s correspondence that provide details or different perspectives on the places, people, and American life and attitudes the travelers encountered. These delightful letters provide an intimate portrait of the complicated, talented Tocqueville, who opened himself without prejudice to the world of Jacksonian America. Moreover, they contain many of the impressions and ideas that served as preliminary sketches for Democracy in America, his classic account of the American democratic system that remains an important reference work to this day. Accessible, witty, and charming, the letters Tocqueville penned while in America are of major interest to general readers, scholars, and students alike.
Author : Alexis de Tocqueville Publisher : University of Chicago Press Page : 817 pages File Size : 43,7 Mb Release : 2012-10-18 Category : Political Science ISBN : 9780226924564
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 ever 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. When it was published in 2000, Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop's new translation of Democracy in America—only the third since the original two-volume work was published in 1835 and 1840—was lauded in all quarters as the finest and most definitive edition of Tocqueville's classic thus far. Mansfield and Winthrop have restored the nuances of Tocqueville's 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, but with impeccable annotations of unfamiliar references and a masterful introduction placing the work and its author in the broader contexts of political philosophy and statesmanship.
Tocqueville between Two Worlds by Sheldon S. Wolin Pdf
Alexis de Tocqueville may be the most influential political thinker in American history. He also led an unusually active and ambitious career in French politics. In this magisterial book, one of America's most important contemporary theorists draws on decades of research and thought to present the first work that fully connects Tocqueville's political and theoretical lives. In doing so, Sheldon Wolin presents sweeping new interpretations of Tocqueville's major works and of his place in intellectual history. As he traces the origins and impact of Tocqueville's ideas, Wolin also offers a profound commentary on the general trajectory of Western political life over the past two hundred years. Wolin proceeds by examining Tocqueville's key writings in light of his experiences in the troubled world of French politics. He portrays Democracy in America, for example, as a theory of discovery that emerged from Tocqueville's contrasting experiences of America and of France's constitutional monarchy. He shows us how Tocqueville used Recollections to reexamine his political commitments in light of the revolutions of 1848 and the threat of socialism. He portrays The Old Regime and the French Revolution as a work of theoretical history designed to throw light on the Bonapartist despotism he saw around him. Throughout, Wolin highlights the tensions between Tocqueville's ideas and his activities as a politician, arguing that--despite his limited political success--Tocqueville was ''perhaps the last influential theorist who can be said to have truly cared about political life.'' In the course of the book, Wolin also shows that Tocqueville struggled with many of the forces that constrain politics today, including the relentless advance of capitalism, of science and technology, and of state bureaucracy. He concludes that Tocqueville's insights and anxieties about the impotence of politics in a ''postaristocratic'' era speak directly to the challenges of our own ''postdemocratic'' age. A monumental new study of Tocqueville, this is also a rich and provocative work about the past, the present, and the future of democratic life in America and abroad.
John Tincroft, Bachelor and Benedict: Without Intending it by George E. Sargent Pdf
SO many years ago that those who are old now were young then, and so few years ago that deeds then transacted are fresh in the memory of many who are living now, John Tincroft, an undergraduate of Oxford, was invited to spend the long vacation with a college friend. And the invitation came very opportunely, John thought. For one reason, he had no home of his own. His parents had been long dead, and a distant relative—a London merchant—who had charge of his orphanhood, was not particularly, certainly not passionately, fond of him. This gentleman took care to explain, however, to all whom it might concern, that he had always done his duty towards the lad. But, as regards this duty, whatever else it might include, it possibly had not occurred to Mr. Rackstraw that the providing a happy home should have formed a component part of it. In the next place, John Tincroft was comparatively poor, and he was becoming poorer. His patrimony, a small one at first, had been woefully diminished by his three years' term-keeping, and still more so by carrying on a Chancery suit; that is, by paying his lawyer to carry it on for him. He was not in debt, however, which was something in his favour—or perhaps in his disfavour with college tradesmen. But he was much nearer the bottom of his purse than he cared to be, when the offer of a three months' residence in a hospitable home was placed before him. He had only one or two more terms to keep, and he wisely thought that he could not employ this last long vacation better than in reading with young Grigson (if he would be read with) as was proposed. So the invitation was accepted. In another year, Tincroft would be far-away from England. He was going to India in the Civil Service. This much his guardian, who had no sons of his own to step into the appointment, had done for him, without much cost or trouble to himself. "It will be the making of you, if you mind what you are about John," said Mr. Rackstraw; "and as to that plaguey Chancery suit and the Tincroft estate, it isn't worth your while staying in England to be the winner—or the loser, which is the more likely of the two." He did not add audibly, "And I shall be well rid of you into the bargain," though probably, he thought it within himself. John Tincroft had already commenced making preparations in a small way for his expatriation, as well as for his future duties; that is, he had plunged head foremost into certain Oriental histories, under a misty idea that they would be useful to him when he got to Calcutta.
Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy by Ewa Atanassow,Richard Boyd Pdf
Alexis de Tocqueville is widely cited as an authority on civil society, religion and American political culture, yet his thoughts on democratization outside the West and the challenges of a globalizing age are less known and often misunderstood. This collection of essays by a distinguished group of international scholars explores Tocqueville's vision of democracy in Asia and the Middle East; the relationship between globalization and democracy; colonialism, Islam and Hinduism; and the ethics of international relations. Rather than simply documenting Tocqueville's own thoughts, the volume applies the Frenchman's insights to enduring dilemmas of democratization and cross-cultural exchanges in the twenty-first century. This is one of the few books to shift the focus of Tocqueville studies away from America and Western Europe, expanding the frontiers of democracy and highlighting the international dimensions of Tocqueville's political thought.
Alexis de Tocqueville and American Intellectuals by Matthew J. Mancini Pdf
Comprehensive in its chronology, the works it discusses, and the commentators it critically examines, Alexis de Tocqueville and American Intellectuals tells the surprising story of Tocqueville's reception in American thought and culture from the time of his 1831 visit to the United States to the turn of the twenty-first century.
The making of Tocqueville's Democracy: Studies in the development of Alexis de Tocqueville's work on America with particular attention to his sources, his ideas and his methods by James Thomas Schleifer Pdf
