Democracy in America
alexis de tocqueville
['jancis robinson', 'edmondo de amicis', 'aesop', 'bernhard schlink', 'quintus smyrnaeus', 'naoko takeuchi', 'robert tressell', 'danielle steel', 'lorenz hart', 'john william polidori', 'honor harrington', 'mary wollstonecraft shelley', 'edwin balmer', 'wagnerian', 'karel sabina', 'haeckel', 'saint augustine', 'thomas mann', 'andy hartnell', 'multatuli', 'figaro', 'hans jakob christoffel von grimmelshausen', 'apple', 'carl linnaeus', 'joseph delaney', 'harold pinter', 'julian casablancas', 'ronald', 'kenneth oppel', 'lee hall', 'rabindranath tagore', 'rachel field', 'beverly cleary', 'august wilson', 'carl von clausewitz', 'amy sedaris', 'carter dickson', 'ikki kajiwara', 'aleksey tolstoy', 'aravind adiga', 'premchand', 'thucydides', 'jack dorsey', 'arthur koestler', 'megumi tachikawa', 'elmore leonard', 'julian cope', 'sergey lukyanenko', 'david eddings', 'plutarch', 'yoshiki takaya', 'ann shulgin', 'francis meres', 'jack finney', 'dorothy sayers', 'schumann', 'david walliams', 'alonso de ercilla', 'plath', 'rose wilder lane', 'dashiell hammett', 'louis couperus', 'frederick forsyth', 'beryl bainbridge', 'jake rodkin', 'randall munroe', 'giulio caccini', 'kaja foglio', 'alfred jarry', 'mikhail bulgakov', 'peter shaffer', 'george chapman', 'sigmund freud', 'julie campbell tatham', 'evelyn waugh', 'jonathan stroud', 'luke rhinehart', 'allan sherman', 'baroness emmuska orczy', 'peter farrelly', 'alberto moravia', 'george bernard shaw', 'wodehouse', 'ghostwriter', 'nikolai gogol', 'octave mirbeau', 'theodore dreiser', 'percy bysshe shelley', 'adolf hitler', 'lemony snicket', 'zoroaster', 'william hope hodgson', 'walter farley', 'stan lee', 'caroline lawrence', 'brendan behan', 'laura hillenbrand', 'john cheever', 'william morris']
Democracy in America
De La Démocratie en Amérique ([dəla demɔkʁasi ɑ̃n‿ameˈʁik]; published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840) is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. Its title translates as On Democracy in America, but English translations are usually simply entitled Democracy in America. In the book, Tocqueville examines the democratic revolution that he believed had been occurring over the past seven hundred years. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont were sent by the French government to study the American prison system. In his later letters Tocqueville indicates that he and Beaumont used their official business as a pretext to study American society instead. They arrived in New York City in May of that year and spent nine months traveling the United States, studying the prisons, and collecting information on American society, including its religious, political, and economic character. The two also briefly visited Canada, spending a few days in the summer of 1831 in what was then Lower Canada (modern-day Quebec) and Upper Canada (modern-day Ontario). After they returned to France in February 1832, Tocqueville and Beaumont submitted their report, Du système pénitentiaire aux États-Unis et de son application en France, in 1833. When the first edition was published, Beaumont, sympathetic to social justice, was working on another book, Marie, ou, L'esclavage aux Etats-Unis (two volumes, 1835), a social critique and novel describing the separation of races in a moral society and the conditions of slaves in the United States. Before finishing Democracy in America, Tocqueville believed that Beaumont's study of the United States would prove more comprehensive and penetrating.