Democracy in America

Democracy in America is a masterful display of insight and foresight into all things American. Doubting whether the American experiment in equality could work, Tocqueville conjectured that democracy would erect a society that would succumb to a different type of tyranny than that of a monarchy or aristocracy – that of the majority. Through detailed interviews with “the most informed men” he could meet, he offers an examination of American institutions and the fabric of American life.A two volume work, Democracy in America is divided into a series of chapters designed to tackle questions Tocqueville sees as key to understanding democracy, America, and its citizenry. The analysis covers the obvious elements of political and societal structure, as well as the social and cultural influences that shaped American democracy. It enables us to understand how others saw us – and in fact how we saw ourselves – in our nation’s youth, and will prompt readers to question whether the American experiment, with all that it promised at its beginning, has succeeded.