Democracy in America Translated, edited, and with an introduction by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop

Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805-1859

Book - 2000

Saved in:

2nd Floor Show me where

973.5/Tocqueville
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor 973.5/Tocqueville Checked In
Subjects
Published
Chicago : University of Chicago Press 2000.
Language
English
French
Main Author
Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805-1859 (-)
Other Authors
Harvey Claflin Mansfield, 1932- (-), Delba Winthrop
Physical Description
xciii, 722 p. ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780226805320
  • Editors' Introduction
  • Suggested Readings
  • A note on the Translation
  • Volume 1. Introduction
  • Part 1.
  • 1. External Configuration of North America
  • 2. On the Point of Departure and Its Importance for the Future of the Anglo-Americans
  • Reasons for Some Singularities That the Laws and Customs of the Anglo-Americans Present
  • 3. Social State of the Anglo-Americans
  • That the Salient Point of the Social State of the Anglo-Americans Is Its Being Essentially Democratic
  • Political Consequences of the 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
  • On the Township System in America
  • Size of the Township
  • Powers of the Township in New England
  • On Township Existence
  • On the Spirit of the Township in New England
  • On the County in New England
  • On Administration in New England
  • General Ideas about Administration in the United States
  • On the State
  • Legislative Power of the State
  • On the Executive Power of the State
  • On the Political Effects of Administrative Decentralization in the United States
  • 6. On Judicial Power in the United States and Its Action on Political Society
  • Other Powers Granted to American Judges
  • 7. On Political Judgment in the United States
  • 8. On the Federal Constitution
  • History of the Federal Constitution
  • Summary Picture of the Federal Constitution
  • Prerogatives of the Federal Government
  • Federal Powers
  • Legislative Powers
  • Another Difference between the Senate and the House of Representatives
  • On the Executive Power
  • How the Position of the President of the United States Differs from That of a Constitutional King in France
  • Accidental Causes That Can Increase the Influence of the Executive Power
  • Why the President of the United States Does Not Need to Have a Majority in the Houses in Order to Direct Affairs
  • On the Election of the President
  • Mode of Election
  • Crisis of the Election
  • On the Reelection of the President
  • On the Federal Courts
  • Manner of Settling the Competence of the Federal Courts
  • Different Cases of Jurisdiction
  • Manner of Proceeding of Federal Courts
  • Elevated Rank Held by the Supreme Court among the Great Powers of the State
  • How the Federal Constitution Is Superior to the Constitutions of the States
  • What Distinguishes the Federal Constitution of the United States of America from All Other Federal Constitutions
  • On the Advantages of the Federal System Generally, and Its Special Utility for America
  • What Keeps the Federal System from Being within Reach of All Peoples, and What Has Permitted the Anglo-Americans to Adopt It
  • Part 2.
  • 1. How One Can Say Strictly That in the United States the People Govern
  • 2. On Parties in the United States
  • On the Remains of the Aristocratic Party 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
  • On Universal Suffrage
  • On the Choices of the People and the Instincts of American Democracy in Its Choices
  • On the Causes That Can in Part Correct These Instincts of Democracy
  • Influence That American Democracy Exerts on Electoral Laws
  • On Public Officials under the Empire of American Democracy
  • On the Arbitrariness of Magistrates under the Empire of American Democracy
  • Administrative Instability in the United States
  • On Public Costs under the Empire of American Democracy
  • On the Instincts of American Democracy in Fixing the Salaries of Officials
  • Difficulty of Discerning the Causes That Incline the American Government to Economy
  • Can the Public Expenditures of the United States Be Compared to Those of France?
  • On the Corruption and Vices of Those Who Govern in Democracy; On the Effects on Public Morality That Result
  • Of What Efforts Democracy Is Capable
  • On the Power That American Democracy Generally Exercises over Itself
  • The Manner in Which American Democracy Conducts External Affairs of State
  • 6. What Are the Real Advantages That American Society Derives from the Government of Democracy
  • On the General Tendency of the Laws under the Empire of American Democracy, and on the Instinct of Those Who Apply Them
  • On Public Spirit in the United States
  • On the Idea of Rights in the United States
  • On Respect for the Law in the United States
  • Activity Reigning in All Parts of the Body Politic of the United States; Influence That It Exerts on Society
  • 7. On the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its E ects
  • How the Omnipotence of the Majority in America Increases the Legislative and Administrative Instability That Is Natural to Democracies
  • Tyranny of the Majority
  • Effects of the Omnipotence of the Majority on the Arbitrariness of American Officials
  • On the Power That the Majority in America Exercises over Thought
  • Effects of the Tyranny of the Majority on the National Character of the Americans; On the Spirit of a Court in the United States
  • That the Greatest Danger of the American Republics Comes from the Omnipotence of the Majority
  • 8. On What Tempers the Tyranny of the Majority in the United States
  • Absence of Administrative Centralization
  • On the Spirit of the Lawyer in the United States and How It Serves as a Counterweight to Democracy
  • On the Jury in the United States Considered as a Political Institution
  • 9. On the Principal Causes Tending to Maintain a Democratic Republic in the United States
  • On the Accidental or Providential Causes Contributing to the Maintenance of a Democratic Republic in the United States
  • On the Influence of the Laws on the Maintenance of a Democratic Republic in the United States
  • On the Influence of Mores on the Maintenance of a Democratic Republic in the United States
  • On Religion Considered as a Political Institution; How It Serves Powerfully the Maintenance of a Democratic Republic among the Americans
  • Indirect Influence That Religious Beliefs Exert on Political Society in the United States
  • On the Principal Causes That Make Religion Powerful in America
  • How the Enlightenment, the Habits, and the Practical Experience of the Americans Contribute to the Success of Democratic Institutions
  • That the Laws Serve to Maintain a Democratic Republic in the United States More than Physical Causes, and Mores More than Laws
  • Would Laws and Mores Suffice to Maintain Democratic Institutions Elsewhere than in America?
  • Importance of What Precedes in Relation to Europe
  • 10. Some Considerations on the Present State and the Probable Future of the Three Races That Inhabit the Territory of the United States
  • Present State and Probable Future of the Indian Tribes That Inhabit the Territory Possessed by the Union
  • Position That the Black Race Occupies in the United States; Dangers Incurred by Whites from Its Presence
  • What Are the Chances That the American Union Will Last? What Dangers Threaten It?
  • On Republican Institutions in the United States; What Are Their Chances of Longevity?
  • Some Considerations on the Causes of the Commercial Greatness of the United States
  • Conclusion
  • Volume 2. Notice
  • Part 1. Influence of Democracy on 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
  • 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 2. 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 Individualism in Democratic Countries
  • 3. How Individualism Is Greater at the End of a Democratic Revolution than in 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 E ects That the Love of Material Enjoyments 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 A airs
  • 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 3. 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 More 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 Revolutions 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 4. 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 Concentration 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 or 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
  • Notes
  • Sources Cited by Tocqueville
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

It would be difficult to think of a greater service to the study of Tocqueville than the one performed by Mansfield and Winthrop in their impeccable new edition and translation of Democracy in America. This great classic, which they argue is the best study of both democracy and the US ever written, has long needed a fresher, more literal translation. This they amply supply, adhering to the principles of "staying as close as possible to the original" while still making the text readable and conveying "Tocqueville's thought as he held it" rather than transforming it into the concepts of today. The translation is accompanied by useful notes, some "suggested readings," a list of Tocqueville's sources, and a thorough index. Particularly notable is the "Editor's Introduction," a brilliant guide to Tocqueville's life and thought. This 70-page essay illuminates every issue it touches and will long be understood as a powerful guide to what is most thought-provoking in Tocqueville's work. The publisher is justified in claiming that this version will henceforth be seen as the "authoritative" edition in English of Democracy in America. Essential for all university and college library collections. Undergraduates through researchers and faculty. D. J. Maletz; University of Oklahoma

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.