Tocqueville’s Misreading of America, America’s Misreading of Tocqueville

Abstract

I am delighted to have been invited to participate in this celebration of Alexis de Tocqueville. For, as a conscientious worker, I have interpreted the invitation as a summons to reread Democracy in America. What a pleasure to lose oneself in a book of such wisdom, originality of interpretation, intellectual boldness, sweep, erudition, wisdom, and felicity of style, particularly after having recently endured, as book reviewer, books so crabbed in theme and manner of telling as to induce physical as well as mental pain! As the few of you likely to be familiar with my publications will know, my admiration for Tocqueville has been tempered by what some Tocquevilie-ans might call a perhaps excessive sensitivity to the flaws in his discussion of American society during the Jacksonian era.