On Tocqueville : Democracy and America

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In On Tocqueville, Alan Ryan brilliantly illuminates the observations of the French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville, who first travelled to the United States in 1831 and went on to catalog the unique features of the American social contract in his two-volume masterpiece, Democracy in America. Often considered the father of "American Exceptionalism," Tocqueville wanted to approach the social conditions of emerging political equality in America, "a river that may be channeled but cannot be stopped in its course." In choosing America, he posed a central question of how a moderate, stable, and constitutional government is to be maintained in the wake of a revolution. As a dispassionate visitor, Tocqueville wanted to discover the social, moral, and economic arrangements that made liberty and self-government possible. In doing so, Tocqueville made a number of prescient observations about American life-whether it be the contrast between equality and liberty or Americans' belief that they all belong to the midd