Some observers cautiously mine the text for its fresh insights on such perennial themes as liberty of the press, the tyranny of the majority and civil society or they focus on such topics as why it is that modern democracies are vulnerable to ‘commercial panics’ and why they simultaneously value equality, reduce the threat of revolution and grow complacent. Its daring conjectures, elegant prose, formidable length and narrative complexity make it a masterpiece, yet exactly those qualities have together ensured, through time, that opinions greatly differ about the roots of its greatness. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale UniversityĪlexis de Tocqueville’s four-volume Democracy in America (1835-1840) is commonly said to be among the greatest works of nineteenth-century political writing.
The young aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, sketch by an unknown artist.
0 kommentar(er)
