Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat, captured the essence of nineteenth-century America in his penetrating work, Democracy in America. The democratic concept of equality was emerging as a political reality in America, and it threatened the aristocracy of Europe; it produced a society of individualists hungry for self improvement. In this classic treatise, Tocqueville weighed the advantages of democracy against its dangers. He asked: Is the tendency toward equality a tendency toward liberty? Can the majority be restrained to protect the freedom of individuals and minorities?
In pondering these questions, Tocqueville presented an unsurpassed picture of American government, culture, and attitudes. He proclaimed a new nation with a new theory of human interaction: America, ruled by the will of the majority.
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" Interesting commentary - thought this was the original source. It wasn't but it filled in a lot of good background information. "
— Scott, 3/18/2012" Interesting commentary - thought this was the original source. It wasn't but it filled in a lot of good background information. "
— Scott, 3/14/2010Ralph Raico is professor emeritus of European history at Buffalo State College in New York. He received his doctorate from the University of Chicago, Committee on Social Thought, where the head of his dissertation committee was Friedrich Hayek. He has written numerous articles and essays in scholarly journals and is the translator of Ludwig von Mises’ Liberalism and of essays contained in Hayek’s Collected Works. Dr. Raico was editor of the New Individualist Review and senior editor of Inquiry. He has lectured throughout Europe, the United States, and Canada and is a senior faculty member at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Joseph Stromberg is a research fellow at the Independent Institute and has held the JoAnn B. Rothbard chair in history at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He received his BA and MA from Florida Atlantic University, and his further graduate work was completed at the University of Florida.
Paul Meier, MD, is a psychiatrist at the Meier Clinics in Richardson, Texas, and the author of more than eighty books, including Love Is a Choice, Happiness Is a Choice, Blue Genes, and Everything I Learned Since I Knew It All. He has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs over the past thirty years, including shows with Oprah, Tom Snyder, Norman Vincent Peale, Joyce Meyer, Sheila Walsh, Paula White, and many others. He is also the founder of the national chain of counseling clinics called the Meier Clinics, a nonprofit corporation.