Democracy in America

by Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville

Publishers:

Robert P. Gwinn; Encyclopedia Britannica

, 1990

Overview

The makers of Encyclopaedia Britannica bring you one of the Great Books of the Western World. This text captures major ideas, stories, and discoveries that helped shape Western culture.

Contents

Top Highlights

“in America it is religion which leads to enlightenment and the observance of divine laws which leads men to liberty.” (Page 20)

“Puritanism was not just a religious doctrine; in many respects it shared the most absolute democratic and republican theories.” (Page 15)

“There is no need to explain that this chapter does not pretend to give a history of America. My sole aim has been to enable the reader to appreciate the influence of the opinions and mores of the first immigrants on the destinies of the various colonies and the Union as a whole. So I have had to limit myself to some fragmentary quotations.” (Page 389)

“The other colonies had been founded by unattached adventurers, whereas the immigrants to New England brought with them wonderful elements of order and morality; they came with their wives and children to the wilds. But what most distinguished them from all others was the very aim of their enterprise. No necessity forced them to leave their country; they gave up a desirable social position and assured means of livelihood; nor was their object in going to the New World to better their position or accumulate wealth; they tore themselves away from home comforts in obedience to a purely intellectual craving; in facing the inevitable sufferings of exile they hoped for the triumph of an idea.” (Page 15)

“American civilization in its true light. It is the product (and one should continually bear in mind this point of departure) of two perfectly distinct elements which elsewhere have often been at war with one another but which in America it was somehow possible to incorporate into each other, forming a marvelous combination. I mean the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom.” (Page 21)

Product Details

• Title: Democracy in America
• Author: Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
• Edition: Second Edition
• Series: Great Books of the Western World
• Volume: 44
• Publishers: Robert P. Gwinn, Encyclopedia Britannica
• Print Publication Date: 1990
• Logos Release Date: 2016
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: United States › Politics and government--1815-1861; United States › Social conditions--To 1865; Democracy
• ISBNs: 0852295316, 9780852295311
• Resource ID: LLS:GBWW44
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:11:39Z

About Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville

Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in western societies. Democracy in America (1835), his major work, published after his travels in the United States, is today considered an early work of sociology and political science.