My rating:
add to my books
Loading...
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy's Guide
Alexis de Tocqueville was among the first foreigners to recognize and trumpet the grandness of the American project. His two-volume classic, "Democracy in America," published in 1835, offered not only a vivid account of the still young nation but famously predicted what the nation would become, and firmly established his place in U.S. history. Yet in his own time
...morePaperback, 208 pages
Published
November 3rd 2009
by Harper Perennial
(first published November 7th 2006)
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
33)
This was a short introductory bio on Tocqueville by Joseph Epstein. I had seen some of his essays before and realized he lived in the area. I gave his Tocqueville book a try and it was fairly good. He is excellent at distilling the basic ideas in Democracy in America and give an effective introduction to his life, work, and continuing relevance. This is not particularly deep but it can clearly get to the point.
Epstein writes a short biography of Tocqueville, heavy on his writings, and includes many quotations, for which he is to be thanked. He does see Tocqueville with a slight conservative eye (in part seeing in Tocqueville a centralization of power ahead of everything else, but it does not overwhelm this fairly brisk read).
Very very interesting guy. The biography is a little scatterbrained, but works in the end. The most interesting parts have more to do with his writing than him as a person.
Man's damn name has been in my head since a political thought class I took in 2004...
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
