Arthur Kaledin's groundbreaking book on Alexis de Tocqueville offers an original combination of biography, character study, and wide-ranging analysis of Tocqueville's Democracy in America, bringing new light to that classic work. The author examines the relation between Tocqueville's complicated inner life, his self-imagination and his moral thought, and the meaning of his enduring writings, leading to a new understanding of Tocqueville's view of democratic culture and democratic politics, especially in their American incarnations. Kaledin brings his subject vividly to life, drawing extensively on Tocqueville's own writings, especially on his voluminous, candid correspondence and on the growing body of literature on Tocqueville and the France of his time. With particular emphasis on Tocqueville's prescient anticipation of various threats to liberty, social unity, and truly democratic politics in America posed by aspects of democratic culture, Kaledin underscores the continuing pertinence of Tocqueville's thought in our own changing world of the twenty-first century.

Arthur Kaledin is professor of history emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Scholars and committed amateurs will benefit from Kaledin’s sustained immersion in his subject."—Sara Wheeler, The Spectator