The French Background of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

“In America,” Tocqueville wrote, “I saw more than America; I sought there the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its progress.”’ In other words, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is really a book about France. More than that, it is a book about the future of the world. “The whole book,” he said in his introduction to Democracy in America “has been written under the influence of a kind of religious awe produced in the author’s mind by the view of that irresistible revolution which has advanced for centuries … and which is still advancing in the midst of the ruins it has caused.” Tocqueville’s attitude was the product of his own family background, of his own education, and of French history. In this paper I would like to take up these three roots (personal, intellectual, and historical) of his Democracy in America and then give a brief overview of what he found.