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It is impossible fully to understand the American experience apart from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Moreover, it is impossible fully to appreciate Tocqueville by assuming that he brought to his visitation to America, or to the writing of his great work, a fixed philosophical doctrine. James T. Schleifer documents where, when, and under what influences Tocqueville wrote different sections of his work. In doing so, Schleifer discloses the mental processes through which Tocqueville passed in reflecting on his experiences in America and transforming these reflections into the most original and revealing book ever written about Americans. For the first time the evolution of a number of Tocqueville's central themes—democracy, individualism, centralization, despotism—emerges into clear relief. As Russell B. Nye has observed, "Schleifer's study is a model of intellectual history, an account of the intertwining of a man, a set of ideas, and the final product, a book." The Liberty Fund second edition includes a new preface by the author and an epilogue, "The Problem of the Two Democracies."

The Writing of the First Part of the Democracy

When Tocqueville first thought of writing a book about America has never been entirely clear. In 1831–32, the official mission of the young juge auditeur and his traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, was to examine and report upon the American prison systems, but even before leaving France the two friends had determined to study more than criminal codes and penitentiary schemes. “We are leaving with the intention of examining in detail and as scientifically as possible all the mechanisms of this vast American society about which everyone talks and no one knows. And if events allow us the time, we expect to bring back the elements of a bon ouvrage, or at least of a new work; for nothing exists on this subject.”

James T. Schleifer

James Thomas Schleifer is Professor Emeritus of History and Director of the Gill Library at the College of New Rochelle.