tourist instructs his hosts that their preferred legal mechanisms may develop into ochlocracy if they don't cool it.

Read pieces of this in college and I want to buy it and go back through it.

I'm going with 4 stars here, it isn't always the easiest book to read, but worth it. There is a lot of wisdom in this book, a lot of insight. While history hasn't borne out all his predictions, there have been enough. Sadly also, it looks as though more of the things he said may still prove to be true.

In today's atmosphere, the thoughts here compared to the reality we live in and that "may" be coming to pass....well, it's worth some thought. When America broke away from the "branch" so to speak it was a new thing in the world. No colony had ever done what was done here and it was an idealistic experiment even a dream that was watched by the world. Europe was...somewhat worried and England in particular was very unhappy about the implications. Had the War of 1812 gone differently on this side of the Atlantic we all still might be drinking tea more than coffee as it could have changed everything. But when you say "the War of 1812" in Europe their minds go to battles and events other than here in North America. They think of the Napoleonic war.

But back to the subject. The American Revolution raised questions worldwide and things began to percolate. In France things boiled over not long after they did here. It's notable that many in the academic community are far more enamored with the French Revolution than with the American. You see it was "supposed to be" a "rational Revolution" it was a Godless revolution with all the clergy and God Himself rejected by the leaders and much of the movement (the clergy was seen as close to the royals you see). Unfortunately the French Revolution spun out of control into a rein of terror and then into a military dictatorship.

In the wake of all this a young man (Alexis de Tocqueville) spent 9 months touring the "new" United States and when he returned to France he wrote this book commenting on the social and governmental "situation" and implications.

He was torn between hopeful and...well, not so hopeful.

So I recommend the book. It's interesting, thought provoking and somewhat sobering. I leave you with one quote from said book:

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Think about it.

Well I'm glad that I listened to this as an audio book (the LibraVox edition which I wouldn't recommend). There is no way I would have read through this extensive and at times pedantic work. How a man can come to the United States (supposedly to visit prisons and penitentiaries) and proceed to write 36 hours worth of constant reading is beyond comprehension. Democracy in America is an incredible survey of Jacksonian America that leaves almost no stone in place. An impressive task and an impressive result.

That being said, a good portion of this book is his speculations about the future implications of a democratic society for future generations. Myself being two centuries removed, can safely say he was wrong about much, right about some, and painfully right about others. This is not to de Toqueville's discredit for his insights were well placed and well thought out. There is so much within this work that a goodreads review is no place to survey this survey, so I will simply say which sections I enjoyed greatly and which I muddled through.

Pros:
Origin of the Anglo-Americans
Judicial Power in the United States
The Federal Constitution
Unlimited Power of the Majority in the United States and Its Consequences
Causes Which Mitigate the Tyranny of the Majority
Of Individualism in Democratic Societies
What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear

Cons:
The Present and Probably Future Conditions of the Three Races
Philosophical Method of the Americans
What Causes Democratic Nations to Incline Toward Pantheism
Some Reflection on American Manners
Why Democractic Nations Desire Peace and Democratic Armies Desire War

Disclaimer - Because I listened to the LibraVox recording (which consists of volunteer readers), I skimmed through a few chapters because I couldn't listen to certain reader's voices...

On the one hand, I'm quite pleased at having made it all the way through this; on the other I kinda wish I'd sought out an abridged version! Some parts were very interesting to me. Other parts were, I am sure, very interesting to other people. ;-) I wish I'd pulled more quotes, because there were quite a few pearls, but sometimes the timing just doesn't work.

We've gained some, but lost so much more. Even the most significant gain—the end of slavery, that "peculiar institution" that was always the crack in our nation's foundation—came about at a high cost that did not manage to effect the true repentance that was needed. Adding more cracks to the foundation was no blessing.

Reader was fine.

لقد أبهر هذا الكتاب القراء الأوروبيين منذ صدوره وطوال النصف الثانى من القرن التاسع عشر ظل القراء والباحثين يلجأون إليه ليتفهموا الظروف التى نشأ فيها المجتمع الأمريكى السريع التطور والهائل فى نموه والمتعدد فى آراؤه ومعتقداته وكيف تكون كل هذه الأمور من النتائج العملية الطيبة للحكومة الفدرالية الديمقراطية هناك .
ولا يسعنا هنا أن نحاول حتى وصف ثراء المحتوى فبين غلافى الكتاب كمية هائلة من المعلومات التاريخية والتأملات الفلسفية والتجارب الاجتماعية العملية ولكن يمكننا التلميح عن أهم عناصر الكتاب فعلى سبيل المثال يلقى الكاتب ضوءاً ساطعاً مستمراً على أهمية عامل المساواة الديمقراطية بين الأفراد ويرجع اليها السبب الأعظم تأثيراً فى استمرار نمو الحياة الأمريكية الاجتماعية على هذا النحو . فهذه المساواة التى تسرى بين الافراد كما بين الولايات هى التى تدفع الى التعاون لدفع الولايات بعضها بعضا وبالتالى بالاتحاد - الذى ترى الولايات مصلحة عليا فى استمراره - ككل دفعاً الى الأمام . وبالتالى تظل تسعى الى تشكيل مؤسسات وتشريع قوانين تناسب هذا الوضع المرغوب من الجميع وبشكل يرضى الاغلبية وهو ما يتعدل ويتحسن ليشمل الجميع بشكل مستمر عن طريق التجربة العملية الخاضعة للتأملات النظرية وتظل التجربة تدعم او تقوم هذه الأفكار والعكس كذلك فليس هناك مشكلة ان وقع فرد او جماعة فى خطأ ما لأن الديمقراطية تساعد على الحل الفورى والفعال لأوجه القصور المتعددة والمتشعبة هذه بشكل مستمر وبالتالى يستمر التطور كقطار لا ينضب له وقود ولا تتلف له آله .
ولا يغفل الكاتب الحديث عن اوجه الحياة المتعددة فى اى مجتمع كامل التكوين كالحياة الأدبية والفكرية فى هذا المجتمع وظروف التعليم والتطور العلمى لديه والأهداف الإقتصادية المعينة لأغلب الأفراد واسبابها ونتائجها وكذلك أثر اللغة على الأفراد وأثر الديمقراطية على اللغة . والفكرة البسيطة والعملية عن الدين لدى الأمريكيين . والكثير غير ذلك من العناصر التفصيلية التى تساعد على حبك الصورة الكاملة عن الامة الامريكية الحديثة .
ولا يخفى انه رغم التحليل الدقيق والبراق للكاتب الذى سافر لفترة وتنقل فى الولايات الامريكية المختلفة شرقا وغربا ويحدثنا حديث العالم المُطَّلع والمجرب المعاين والحكم المحايد لكونه فرنسياً اقول رغم هذا كان لابد ان يخفق فى بعض تنبؤاته بشأن المستقبل الأمريكى وهذا لا يعيبه فهذا شأن الزمن وحده الذى يغير مجرى الأحداث بشكل مفاجىء متوقعا او غير متوقع وكذلك فإنه يهمل تأثير بعض العناصر الهامة فى بعضها الاخر كالعنصر الاقتصادى فى اثارة المشاكل بين الولايات والافراد بل والمؤسسات وغير ذلك كثير ولكنه لو تعمد ان يلم بكل العلاقات لما أفلح ولكنه يترك للقارىء الكثير من جوانب البحث والتخمين والتحليل الذاتى وهو يعترف باستمرار لكون كتابه مركزاً فى تحليل اثر المساواة الديمقراطية ونتائجها الطيبة فى مختلف جوانب حياة المجتمع الامريكى فهو لا يهتم كذلك بتأريخ رؤساء الأتحاد ولكنه يشرح لنا طبيعة هذا الإتحاد فى رحلة تطورها منذ الاستقلال وحتى رحلة الكاتب فى ثلاثينات القرن ال ١٩ ليتنبأ بعد ذلك بمستقبل هذا الاتحاد والاخطار التى تترصده وكيفية مواجهتها .
انه كتاب لاغنى عنه لفهم المجتمع الامريكى الحالى والتاريخ الامريكى رغم كل اوجه النقص التى اشرنا اليها فاوجه التحليل الدقيق والتأمل العميق السليم ليغلب كل نقص يمكن الحديث عنه فى هذا الكتاب الفلسفى التاريخى والسياسى الاجتماعى .

I love doing that time travel thing, when you find an author who can bring you to his or her time, and you are like Samantha in Bewitched talking to Benjamin Franklin in her 60s housewife clothes.
I take this from my shelf every few years and stick it in my backpack and read my little copy of this book for a few minutes every other day or so, much like the religious read the bible I assume, although I always remember that mine was written by a youngish white European of no particular esteem who went to check out America, rather than a book of metaphors taken entirely too seriously, designed to start countless wars and cruelties.
I enjoy hearing about the small townish lack of complexity of America, and its innate sense of exploration and innocence. Its belief in equality and forthright expression (albeit with a puritanical malevolence on the back edge) is charming, although I also wonder exactly when the last match was blown out on that country, and replaced with this massive regime.

From whatever angle one views the destiny of the natives of North America, one sees only irremediable afflictions. If they remain savages, they will be driven out as others advance. If they wish to become civilized, contact with more civilized people subjects them to oppression and misery. If they continue to wander from wilderness to wilderness, they will perish. If they try to settle in one place, they will also perish. They can gain enlightenment only with the help of Europeans, and the approach of Europeans corrupts them and drives them back into barbarism. So long as they are left alone in their solitudes, they refuse to change their mores; when they are finally obliged to do so, it is too late.

The Spaniards loosed their dogs on the Indians as though the natives were ferocious beasts. They pillaged the New World as if storming a city, indiscriminately and mercilessly. But to destroy everything is impossible, and frenzy has a limit: the remnants of the Indian population, having escaped the massacres, eventually mixed with the conquerors and adopted their religion and mores.

By contrast, the conduct of the Americans of the United States toward the Indians exhibits the purest love of formalities and legalities. Provided that the Indians remain in the savage state, the Americans do not interfere in their affairs and treat them as independent peoples. They will not occupy Indian land until it has been duly acquired by contract. And if by chance an Indian nation can no longer live within its territory, the Americans offer a fraternal hand and lead the natives off to die somewhere other than in the land of their fathers.

The Spaniards, despite acts of unparalleled monstrousness that left them indelibly covered with shame, were unable to exterminate the Indian race or even prevent the Indians from sharing their rights. The Americans of the United States achieved both results with marvelous ease, quietly, legally, philanthropically, without bloodshed, without violating a single one of the great principles of morality in the eyes of the world. To destroy human beings with greater respect for the laws of humanity would be impossible.

This book written in 1831 can really be described as worlds first ever thesis on Democracy. Tocqueville was passionate about equality and liberty. Unusually so, because Tocquevile was a French nobleman who had seen his country descend from monarch into anarchy, and as such was obsessed with how judical reform can make a nation democratic and its people equal.

In 1831, America was on the cusp of change. Jackson had been elected and a new two party system was coming into effect. All the presidents prior to Jackson had come from a Viriginian political elite and had a connection with the founding fathers. This was also the time of the Nat Turner uprising and slavery was beginning to be seen as immoral. Tocqueville who had met Jackson and found him to be unimpressive had a very text-book notion of democracy. He saw it as a system of checks and balance and was unaware of the power of popular appeal, the process by which charismatic and despotic leaders could be elected.

Many people saw America as a new land, somewhat akin to going to a new planet. The rest of the world saw America as the land of philistines. And in the book you can tell that Tocqueville does occasionally veer towards this view. He decries the lack of arts, literature and intellectual refinement in America. He remains astounded how a nation can prosper without the benefit of books written by poets and historians. You can argue that his aristocratic upbringing engendered a certain intellectual snobbishness in his opinions.

Tocqueville is fascinated by the townships and the legal systems and how this could create social equality. He is dismayed by the materialism he sees amongst Americans and how their sense of individualism seems to compel them to live meaningless lives in the pursuit of wealth. Tocqueville had this idea that republics should be based on public virtue, and he expresses concern that the self-interested American had such little sense of civic duty.

Tocqueville describes the distinction between the North and the South. The land of freedom and the land of slavery. Some of the passages in which he describes slavery are very poignant. The tragedy of slaves admiring their masters and trying to ingratiate themselves with the men under whose whip they lived. He contrasts this with the fiercely proud nature of the Red Indian who refuses to give up his land no matter what the price because it houses the bones of his ancestors.

Tocqueville saw a real danger in the tyranny of the majority. Especially if the majority place materialism before liberty. Particulary in the case of religious and ethnic minorities. He describes Catholics being beaten up by Protestants. White people being persecuted for marrying black people. He has a fear that the philistine masses will dominate the intelligentisa when they do arrive in society.

Tocqueville notes with interest the power of association, religious and political and how they were able to mitigate the effects of despotism. He points out that freedom and religion are connected. He sees the Red Indian as the embodiment of the Aristotlean idea of the nobe savage. People whom he deems as eventually dying out because they could not assimilate with the white people. Despite having a met a fluent french-speaking Red Indian on his way to America.

Despite Tocqueville's insight there are a few aspects of American society which he appears to have got wrongs. He overestimates the equality of conditions and is blinded by the power of plutocracy. He also seems to have difficulty in accepting the idea that enlightenment can come to a society without revolution.

Tocqueville most insightful perception in how the expanse of wide open land can change a man's psyche. How the limitless wide open spaces can eradicate class divisions and engender a sense of brotherhood in the men who hack their way through the wilderness.

Interestingly, Tocqueville did not think that the United states would remain united. He felt that territorial pride would foster a sense of nationalism (like the Arab states in the Middle East) and thus fracture the federal government.

A book worth reading for its glimpses into life in America in 1831 and an insight into a genuinely enlightened man. An aristocrat who seemed to have a very spiritual outlook on life and was passionately concerned about equality. I wonder how many men of privilege had this view in 1831.

Meh I’ve read better obnoxious French men

Chronology
Introduction & Notes
Further Reading
Translator's Note

--Democracy in America
Notes

Two Essays on America:
--Two Weeks in the Wilderness
--Excursion to Lake Oneida

Democracy in the United States of America has never been an easy or a facile thing. It’s complicated – it has always been complicated – and those realities are singularly well illustrated in the best book ever written about life in the U.S.A. I refer, of course, to Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840, Democracy in America astonishes the modern reader, because de Tocqueville’s observations from almost 200 years ago apply so well to life in America today.

It may seem strange that a French aristocrat, from an old family of Norman nobility, would turn out to be such an astute student of American democracy. But then, the U.S.A. has always been a country that changes people. A printer from Philadelphia, notable for his efforts to reconcile Great Britain and her American colonies, becomes an American arch-rebel. A Virginia slaveholder becomes the author of one of the most important freedom documents in the history of the world. An orphan from the Caribbean island of Nevis reinvents, virtually single-handed, the financial system of the Western world. This country changes people; and Alexis de Tocqueville’s observations of life in the United States, collected over many months of travel throughout the states and territories of the country during the 1830’s, certainly changed him.

De Tocqueville begins Democracy in America by reflecting that “Of all the novel things which attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me more forcibly than the equality of social conditions” (p. 11). He felt that aristocracy was on the decline throughout the Western world, and that democracy was on the rise – a change that he saw having many good consequences, along with some potentially troubling ones. Democracy in America was the text through which he set down and systematized his observations of life in the United States.

Among de Tocqueville’s thoughts regarding American life are these considerations of how the origins of the American colonies might have encouraged the growth of democracy:

Every new European colony contained, if not in a fully developed form, at least the seed of a fully grown democracy. There were two reasons for this: in general, it can be stated that when they left their mother country, the emigrants had no particular concept of any superiority of one over another. It is hardly the happy and the powerful who choose exile; poverty, along with wretchedness, offers the best guarantee of equal status known to man. (pp. 39-40).

With a strong focus on how the township system developed in the New England colonies, de Tocqueville suggests that the colonists’ focus on local government first, and then on colonial government after, may have done much to mold Americans’ uniquely democratic outlook: “In most European nations, the initial movements of power resided with the upper echelons of society and passed gradually, and always in a partial manner, to the other sections of society. By contrast, in America we can state that the organization of the township preceded that of the county, the county that of the state, the state that of the Union” (p. 52).

De Tocqueville is impressed with how American civilization has developed, and suggests that “This civilization is the result (and this is something we must always bear in mind) of two quite distinct ingredients which anywhere else have often ended in war but which Americans have succeeded somehow to meld together in wondrous harmony – namely, the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty” (p. 55).

No area of American life goes unexamined by de Tocqueville. Manners? Not as polished as in Europe, but avoiding the extremes of both elegance and vulgarity. Attitudes toward money and material prosperity? Acquisitive – as, in an egalitarian democracy, one of the few ways in which one can stand out from one’s neighbors is by having more money than they do. Business practices? Characterized by sharp dealing -- caveat emptor! National pride? Expressed much more loudly, and more stridently, than in Europe.

One sees how de Tocqueville’s status as an aristocrat who believes in democracy affects the way he sees American institutions. When considering, for example, the division of the U.S. Congress into a Senate and a House of Representatives, de Tocqueville makes a point of informing his French audience that “By dividing the legislature into two, Americans have, therefore, intended not to create one hereditary house and another elected; they did not mean the one to be aristocratic, the other democratic; neither did they aim to make the first an adjunct of the establishment, while leaving to the other the concerns and passions of the people” (p. 100). He knows that he needs to remind his French readers regarding the differences between the French and American systems.

While de Tocqueville praises American democracy, he does not depict American society as a perfect society. He sees democracy as a levelling tendency that can discourage individuals from seeking to stand out in areas like education or erudition: “I do not think that there is a single country in the world where, in proportion to the population, there are so few ignorant and, at the same time, so few educated individuals as in America” (p. 65). Only in America, among the major industrialized nations of the world, is “overeducated” an insult. Getting an education in order to make more money – Fine, admirable. Good for you! Constantly learning more for the sake of learning itself, questioning societal norms in the process, building an outlook based on inquiry and critical thinking – what the hell is wrong with you?

De Tocqueville is particularly eloquent when warning about the potential for majoritarianism, the tyranny of the majority. When he writes that “I know of no country where there is generally less independence of thought and real freedom of debate than in America” (p. 297), I find myself thinking about the times when people have felt distinctly unsafe expressing unpopular ideas – opposing McCarthyism during the Red Scare of the 1950’s, for example.

That tendency toward majoritarianism, for de Tocqueville, has much to do with democracy itself. In an unequal society, he points out, many citizens may “take as a guide for their opinions the superior reason of one man or one class” (p. 399). Yet exactly the opposite thing tends to happen in a democracy:

When the man living in a democratic country compares himself individually with all those around him, he sees with pride that he is equal to each of them; but when he happens to contemplate the huge gathering of his fellow men, and to take place beside this great body, he is straightway overwhelmed by his own insignificance and weakness. This very equality which makes him independent of each of his fellow men delivers him alone and defenseless into the hands of the majority. (p. 501).

De Tocqueville finds that newspapers are of great importance against the vast expanses and distances of the United States, writing that a newspaper is “the only way of being able to place the same thought at the same moment into a thousand minds” (p. 600). He adds that “as men become more equal and individualism more of a menace, newspapers are more necessary. The belief that they just guarantee freedom would diminish their importance; they sustain civilization” (p. 600). At the same time, newspapers can be molders of mass opinion, not just deliverers of information. Looking at the power and influence of newspapers and other media in the United States, de Tocqueville writes that “the predisposition to believe in mass opinion increases and becomes progressively the opinion which commands the world” (p. 501).

Modern readers are likely to take particular interest in de Tocqueville’s remarks on race and slavery. He was writing, after all, at a time when slavery was entrenched in the Southern states, but was gradually being abolished across the Northern states. “Slavery,” de Tocqueville writes, “brings dishonor to work; it introduces idleness into society, together with ignorance and pride, poverty, and indulgence. It weakens the powers of the mind and dampens human effort. The influence of slavery, together with the English character, explains the customs and the social conditions of the South” (p. 41).

With his classical education, de Tocqueville is well-qualified to discuss how slavery in the United States is different from slavery in the ancient world, because American slavery is linked with race. In a famous passage, he asks readers to imagine themselves as travellers on the Ohio River between slaveholding Kentucky and free-labour Ohio: a sleepy, idle tableau of inactivity on the Kentucky side, a bustling commercial society on the Ohio side. The reason, de Tocqueville tells us, is simple: “On the left bank of the Ohio, work is connected with the idea of slavery, on the right bank with the idea of progress; on the one side, it is a source of humiliation, on the other, of honour” (p. 405).

He anticipates that American society will be combatting race prejudice long after the formal abolition of slavery, and observes that, in those Northern states where slavery has been abolished, “the legal barrier separating the two races is tending to come down but not that of custom. I see slavery in retreat, but the prejudice which arises from it has not moved at all” (p. 401). Almost 200 years after de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America, and more than 150 years after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States, de Tocqueville’s words regarding the lingering nature of race prejudice still apply. Heaven knows they do.

With regard to gender, de Tocqueville sees that “Americans…have allowed the social inferiority of women to remain”, but insists that “nowhere does [woman] enjoy a higher status” (p. 699) than in the United States. I can’t help wondering: how much did de Tocqueville actually consult the opinions of American women before writing these words, and how did American women of those times respond when they read what de Tocqueville had written regarding gender in American society? Still, de Tocqueville’s admiration for American women remains unmistakable: he writes that “if I am asked how we should account for the unusual prosperity and growing strength of this nation, I would reply that they must be attributed to the superiority of their women” (p. 700).

A striking chapter, near the end of Democracy in America, speculates about “What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.” De Tocqueville writes that he will worry about the future of any democracy when he sees, within that democracy, a critical mass of citizens who are “turned in upon themselves in a restless search for those petty, vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls” (p. 804). And what kind of despotism might be constructed atop the wreckage of American democracy?

De Tocqueville is quite specific regarding how he thinks such a despotism could take shape, saying that “it prefers its citizens to enjoy themselves, provided they have only enjoyment in mind. It works readily for their happiness, but it wishes to be the only provider and judge of it.” Over time, it “reduces daily the value and frequency of the exercise of free choice; it restricts the activity of free will within a narrower range, and gradually removes autonomy itself from each citizen. Equality has prepared men for all this, inclining them to tolerate all these things, and often even to see them as a blessing” (p. 805)

Around the world, one can observe may examples of governments that hold power within a system of “authoritarian capitalism” or “managed democracy.” People can make money as they like – and indeed, a degree of “buy-in” from the well-to-do seems to be required for these systems to work. Everybody has the prospect of dreaming of a McMansion, with a Cadillac Escalade out front, and a wall-sized plasma-screen TV on the walls. Social media technology tracks our likes and interests, often anticipating the next thing we might want to buy or do. You can vote; you're free to vote. But one political party, one leader, is always in charge. Everyone knows what they can or cannot say regarding government policy. And in those places where populist nationalism has taken hold, there is one acceptable way of being a “true” patriotic citizen, and one religion that has an “authentic” formative role in the life of the nation, and – often – there is hostility toward members of various cultural, ideological, and/or religious minorities. Where is the United States of America on that continuum today?

This Penguin Books edition of Democracy in America also includes the essay “Two Weeks in the Wilderness” – a work that shows the sort of work that de Tocqueville did in compiling the materials for what became Democracy in America. We see how much de Tocqueville and a colleague endured whilst travelling under rough conditions from Buffalo, New York, toward Saginaw in what was then Michigan Territory. Having wanted to meet some Indigenous Americans, he finally gets to do so; and in the process, he sees how often and how outrageously Indigenous Americans are cheated in their dealings with Anglo-American pioneers and traders. To that observation, de Tocqueville adds that “Besides, it is not only Indians that the pioneers take for fools. We were daily victims ourselves of their inordinate greed for gain. It is very true that they do not steal. They have too much enlightenment to commit such an unwise act, but I have never seen a big town innkeeper overcharge with more impudence than these inhabitants of the wilderness” (p. 904).

Complete with a sometimes daunting set of footnotes doubled with appendices, Democracy in America is unrivalled in the completeness with which it sets forth the promise and the problems of American life. I will close by repeating what I said at the outset: this is the most important book ever written about life in the United States of America.