John Stuart Mill and Horace Greely both called it the finest book ever written on the nature of democracy, and Democracy in America remains a classic of political philosophy, still shaping debate on both sides of the Atlantic and, not least, in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. Abridged here with an Introduction by Patrick Renshaw, De Tocqueville’s central concern is the advancement of the rule of the people, examined through the structures, institutions and workings of American democracy and what Europe might learn from its successes and its failures. His predictions have proved remarkably prescient: he foresaw that slavery would bring about the ‘most horrible of civil wars’, that the USA and Russia would emerge as the great powers of the twentieth century, and — some 150 years ahead of his time — took positions on the status and importance of women that were strikingly progressive for his era.
ISBN 13: 9781853264801
Author: Alexis de Tocqueville
