Democracy in America

In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, made a nine-month journey throughout America. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the life and institutions of the evolving nation. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age and even divine will. His insightful work has become one of the most influential political texts ever written on America and an indispensable authority on democracy. This new edition is the only one that contains all Tocqueville's writings on America, including the rarely-translated Two Weeks in the Wilderness, an account of Tocqueville's travels in Michigan among the Iroquois, and Excursion to Lake Oneida.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was a French sociologist and historian. He was active in law and politics, serving for a time as foreign minister and wrote L'Ancien Régime, a social and political study of pre-revolutionary France.

Isaac Kramnick is professor of government at Cornell and edited several volumes in the Penguin Classics, including The Federalist Papers.