Bibliography
- Booklist 103, no. 14 (March 15, 2007): 7.
- The Economist 381 (November 25, 2006): 85-86.
- Globe and Mail, April 21, 2007, p. D9.
- London Review of Books 29, no. 6 (March 22, 2007): 29-30.
- The New York Review of Books 54, no. 18 (November 22, 2007): 53-56.
- The Times Literary Supplement, February 23, 2007, pp. 4-6.
- The Wall Street Journal 249, no. 73 (March 29, 2007): D9.
- The Washington Post, April 1, 2007, p. BW02.
- Commager, Henry Steele. Commager on Tocqueville. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993. Analysis of Tocqueville’s writings. Includes an index.
- Herr, Richard. Tocqueville and the Old Regime. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1962. The author, a specialist in modern French history, deals with the incompleteness and apparent inconsistencies of Tocqueville’s The Old Régime and the Revolution. An informative and well-written work with a selective bibliography and a useful index.
- Laski, Harold J. “Alexis de Tocqueville and Democracy.” In The Social and Political Ideas of Some Representative Thinkers of the Victorian Age, edited by F. J. C. Hearnshaw. London: G. G. Harrap, 1933. Laski, a distinguished British liberal-left political analyst and a force behind the extension of the British welfare state, cogently examines Tocqueville’s views on social democracy and their relevance to modern democracies. No notes, bibliography, or index. Generally available.
- Ledeen, Michael Arthur. Tocqueville on American Character: Why Tocqueville’s Brilliant Exploration of the American Spirit Is as Vital and Important Today as It Was Nearly Two Hundred Years Ago. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Evaluates Tocqueville’s American travels and their impact on him and his writings.
- Mansfield, Harvey C., Delba Winthrop, and Philippe Raynaud. Tyranny and Liberty: Big Government and the Individual in Tocqueville’s Science of Politics. London: Institute of United States Studies, University of London, 1999. Covers Tocqueville’s ideas on liberty, wealth, and equality as well as government.
- Mayer, Jacob Peter. Alexis de Tocqueville: A Biographical Study in Political Science. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960. Mayer is one of the foremost authorities on Tocqueville, having researched, translated, revised, and completed many of Tocqueville’s works. This is a delightfully informative and clearly written overview intended for general readers. There is one portrait, an appendix assessing Tocqueville’s influences after a century, endnotes, a useful bibliography, and a reliable index. Generally available.
- Mayer, Jacob Peter, and A. P. Kerr. Introduction to Recollections, by Alexis de Tocqueville. Translated by George Lawrence. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970. This is the best edition of what many regard as Tocqueville’s finest work. Mayer and Kerr, experts on Tocqueville, provide an informative introductory essay, many footnotes, a select bibliography, and an extensive index. Available in good bookstores as well as major college and university libraries.
- Pierson, George W. Tocqueville and Beaumont in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1938. This remains the definitive study of Tocqueville’s months in the United States. A thorough evaluation of the settings through which these two friends passed, of the people they met, and of the sources that they employed for their study of the American penal system and, in Tocqueville’s case, for his great study of democracy. Traces Tocqueville’s intellectual development with an eye to clarifying all of his writings. Clearly written and understandable by general readers. There are footnotes, a good bibliography, and a valuable index.
- Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville . Edited by Phillips Bradley. 2 vols. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945. This is a revised version of the first English translation and includes informative notes, historical essays, useful bibliographies, and extensive indexes in each...
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- volume. The author claims that Tocqueville’s work remains one of the most magisterial analyses ever produced on the principle of the sovereignty of the people, its cultural roots, and its evolving political effects.
- Welch, Cheryl B. De Tocqueville. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Biography puts Tocqueville in the revolutionary context of his time.
- Zetterbaum, Marvin. Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1967. An examination of Tocqueville’s proposition that democracy was inevitable and therefore that democracy had to be made safe for the world. The author’s view is that the “inevitability thesis” distracted readers from Tocqueville’s central concern about perfecting democracy and of harmonizing the demands of justice with those of excellence. However brief, this is an enlightening study, clearly written and intended for the general reader. There are footnotes throughout, a useful bibliography, and a valuable index.
