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What books should everyone read before they die?Add Book
Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville
History
James Mustich
Aug 8, 2018
The book originated in a nine-month journey that Tocqueville made through the eastern United States in 1831. Accompanied by a fellow Frenchman, the young aristocrat (he was just turning twenty-six) was ostensibly investigating the country’s prison system. The real point of the journey, however, was “to see what a great republic is.” As he says, “I confess that in America I saw more than America; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or hope from its progress.” Tocqueville focused on the meaning and actual functioning of democracy, studying its effect on the social, political, and economic life of Americans. His intuitions as a thinker and his astute observations are apparent throughout his consideration of myriad topics, among them the philosophical underpinnings of the democratic impulse, religion, the arts, language, the press, individualism, manners, the family, the military, and law and the judiciary. The result was—and remains—a more complete and insightful portrait of the United States than any observer has ever painted.
Americans should read this book and see how their current culture is reaped from seeds sown many, many years ago. It will open some eyes.
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Re-read this in January 2017 after disastrous presidential election because I remembered from reading it more than fifty years ago it was prescient about how democracy could succumb to mediocrity and ignorance of the masses in support of a demagogue. It is as pertinent today as it was in 1840 in analysis of how pop culture could undermine democracy.
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Read in college as an assignment but was eye opening to view our country and way of life at a time when it was novel and from an outsiders perspective
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