A selection of Tocqueville's writings on America together with letters and sketches from his traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont.

Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, traveled the breadth of America to inquire into the future of French society as revolutionary upheaval gave way to a representative government similar to America's. This text reconstructs from their diaries and letters and newspaper accounts their nine-month tour and evolving analysis of American society.

Alexis de Tocqueville arrived in the United States for the first time in May 1831, commissioned by the French government to study the American prison system. For the next nine months he and his companion, Gustave de Beaumont, traveled and observed not only prisons but also the political, economic, and social systems of the early republic. Along the way, they frequently reported back to friends and family members in France. This book presents the first translation of the complete letters Tocqueville wrote during that seminal journey, accompanied by excerpts from Beaumont's correspondence that provide details or different perspectives on the places, people, and American life and attitudes the travelers encountered. --from publisher description.

Gustave de Beaumont's 1835 work, Marie, or Slavery in the United States is structured as a fascinating essay on race interwoven with a novel. It is the story of socially forbidden love between an idealistic young Frenchman and an apparently white American woman with African ancestry. The couple's idealism fades as they repeatedly face racial prejudice and violence, and are eventually forced to seek shelter among exiled Cherokee people. Notable as the first abolitionist novel to focus on racial prejudice rather than bondage as a social evil, Beaumont's work was also the first to link prejudice against Native Americans to prejudice against blacks. This translation, with a new introduction by Gerard Fergerson, provides modern readers with interesting insights into the inconsistencies and injustices of democratic Jacksonian society.

This new edition of Democracy in America makes Tocqueville’s classic nineteenth-century study of American politics, society, and culture available — finally! — in a brief and accessible version. Designed for instructors who are eager to teach the work but reluctant to assign all 700 plus pages, Kammen’s careful abridgment features the most well-known chapters that by scholarly consensus are most representative of Tocqueville’s thinking on a wide variety of issues. A comprehensive introduction provides historical and intellectual background, traces the author’s journey in America, helps students unpack the meaning behind key Tocquevillian concepts like "individualism," "equality," and "tyranny of the majority," and discusses the work’s reception and legacy. Newly translated, this edition offers instructors a convenient and affordable option for exploring this essential work with their students. Useful pedagogic features include a chronology, questions for consideration, a selected bibliography, illustrations, and an index.

Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont's travels in America in 1831-32 have been retold by C-SPAN. For nine months, the cable TV network retraced the Frenchmen's journey, featuring programming from cities along the route. Now the Tocqueville rediscovery continues with the publication of this unique guide-book. Comprising 47 brief chapters covering cities and small towns that Tocqueville visited, the book allows readers to hear Tocqueville's words while following in his footsteps. Chapters include descriptions of cities and towns, excerpts of what Tocqueville wrote about them, accounts of what Tocqueville and Beaumont did there and details about sights that can be seen today. The book provides telephone numbers and addresses of visitors bureaus, general directions and comparisons of the towns as they are today with what they were like in Tocqueville's era. Traveling Tocqueville's America is the perfect companion for armchair traveler and tourist alike.