(P/B) DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA - DE LA DEMOCRATIE EN AMERIQUE (FOUR VOLUME SET)

Παρουσίαση

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and his friend Gustave de Beaumont visited the United States on behalf of the French government to study American prisons. In their nine months in the U.S. they studied not just the prison system but every aspect of American life, public and private the political, economic, religious, cultural, and above all social life of the young nation. From Tocqueville's copious notes of what he had seen and heard came the classic text De la Democratie en Amerique, published in two large volumes, the first in 1835, the second in 1840. The first volume focused primarily on political society; the second, on civil society. Tocqueville's account of the travels and adventures of the two Frenchmen aimed to get down the truth about America, not only to praise the new country's strengths but also to critique its shortcomings when these were all too evident to outside eyes.
For Tocqueville, virtually every aspect of the new republic was fascinating: the laws and the customs, the manners and the mores of a people so very different from the populations of the kingdoms of Europe. He was particularly interested in the success of democracy in America, specifically of republican representative democracy, which seemed to have failed elsewhere, most conspicuously in revolutionary France. Perhaps because Tocqueville, an aristocrat, was by no means sympathetic to "pure" democracy, which seemed tainted by its associations with the Terror of the French Revolution, he examined American democracy with a thoroughness such as had never been seen before, and seldom if ever since. Tocqueville considered the tendency of democracy to degenerate into either the tyranny of the majority or what he called soft despotism, a sovereign power that extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules. . . .it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. (Book IV, chapter 6.)
Tocqueville noted that religion played a leading role in American life in the 1830s, due to its being constitutionally separated from government. Far from objecting to this situation, he observed that Americans found this disestablishment quite satisfactory, in contrast to France, with its outright antagonism between avowedly religious people and supporters of democracy.
The Liberty Fund bilingual Democracy in America includes Eduardo Nolla's historical-critical edition of the French text and notes on the lefthand pages and James Schleifer's English translation on the right. This is the fullest historical-critical edition of the Democracy, and the notes offer an extensive selection of early outlines, drafts, manuscript variants, marginalia, unpublished fragments, and other materials. From the foreword to the French edition: This new Democracy is not only the one that Tocqueville presented to the reader of 1835, then to the reader of 1840. It is enlarged, amplified by a body of texts... the reader will see how Tocqueville proceeded with the elaboration of the main ideas of his book. (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

Translator's Note
Key Terms
Foreword List of Illustrations
Editor's Introduction
Volume 1
Introduction
Part I
Chapter 1: Exterior Configuration of North America
Chapter 2: Of the Point of Departure and Its Importance for the Future of the Anglo-Americans
Chapter 3: Social State of the Anglo-Americans
Chapter 4: Of the Principle of the Sovereignty of the People in America
Chapter 5: Necessity of Studying What Happens in the Individual States before Speaking about the Government of the Union
Chapter 6: Of the Judicial Power in the United States and Its Action on Political Society
Chapter 7: Of Political Jurisdiction in the United States
Chapter 8: Of the Federal Constitution
Volume II
Part II
Chapter 1: How It Can Be Strictly Said That in the United States It Is the People Who Govern
Chapter 2: Of Parties in the United States
Chapter 3: Of Freedom of the Press in the United States
Chapter 4: Of Political Association in the United States
Chapter 5: Of the Government of Democracy in America
Chapter 6: What Are the Real Advantages That American Society Gains from the Government of Democracy?
Chapter 7: Of the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects
Chapter 8: Of What Tempers Tyranny of the Majority in the United States 427
Chapter 9: Of the Principal Causes That Tend to Maintain the Democratic Republic in the United States
Chapter 10: Some Considerations on the Present State and Probable Future of the Three Races That Inhabit the Territory of the United States
Volume III
Part I: Influence of Democracy on the
Intellectual Movement in the United States
Part II: Influence of Democracy on the Sentiments of the Americans
Volume IV
Part III: Influence of Democracy on
Mores Properly So Called
Part IV: Of the Influence That Democratic Ideas and Sentiments Exercise on Political Society
Notes
Appendixes