Tocqueville’s Voyages
The Evolution of His Ideas and Their Journey Beyond His Time

Tocqueville’s Voyages is a collection of newly written essays by some of the most well-known Tocquevillian scholars today. The essays in the first part of the volume explore the development of Tocqueville’s thought, his intellectual voyage, during his trip to America and while writing Democracy in America. The second part of the book focuses on the dissemination of Tocqueville’s ideas beyond the Franco-American context of 1835–1840 in places such as Argentina, Japan, and Eastern Europe.

The articles and contributors are as follows:

Part 1: Tocqueville as Voyager

1. Hidden from View: Tocqueville’s Secrets Eduardo Nolla
2. Tocqueville’s Voyages: To and From America? S. J. D. Green
3. Democratic Dangers, Democratic Remedies, and the Democratic Character James T. Schleifer
4. Tocqueville’s Journey into America Jeremy Jennings
5. Alexis de Tocqueville and the Two-Founding Thesis James W. Ceaser
6. Tocqueville’s “New Political Science” Catherine H. Zuckert
7. Democratic Grandeur: How Tocqueville Constructed His New Moral Science in America Alan S. Kahan
8. Intimations of Philosophy in Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” Harvey C. Mansfield
9. An Undertow of Race Prejudice in the Current of Democratic Transformation: Tocqueville on the “Three Races” of North America Barbara Allen
10. Tocqueville’s Reflections on a Democratic Paradox Jean-Louis Benoît
11. Out of Africa: Tocqueville’s Imperial Voyages Cheryl B. Welch

Part 2: Tocquevillian Voyages

1. Tocqueville’s Voyage of Discovery from Sicily to America Filippo Sabetti
2. Tocqueville, Argentina, and the Search for a Point of Departure Enrique Aguilar
3. Tocqueville and Eastern Europe Aurelian Craiutu
4. Tocqueville and “Democracy in Japan” Reiji Matsumoto

This book gives readers unprecedented access to the development of Tocqueville’s thought as seen through the eyes of some of today’s most preeminent Tocquevillian scholars. Not only do the essays shed fresh light on the ideas in Democracy in America, but they also invite readers to reassess previous interpretations of Tocqueville’s great work and to consider its continued relevance to the world today.

Christine Dunn Henderson is a Senior Fellow at Liberty Fund.