Alexis de Tocqueville authored Democracy in America after observing the United States in the early nineteenth century. His penetrating insights into majority rule, media influence, and the strengths and dangers of democracy have made the work an indispensable classic for the study of American history and democratic thought.

It has become, even today, one of the indispensable textbooks for studying the history of the United States and the history of democracy.
2016-12-06
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (French: Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville, July 29, 1805 – April 16, 1859) was a French political thinker, jurist, and politician.
He began his career as a judge, served as a member of parliament and later as foreign minister, and was involved in all three branches of state power: the judiciary, the executive, and the legislature.
Profile
He was born in the Cotentin region of Normandy.
Although his family belonged to an old aristocratic lineage of military officers and large landowners, many of his close family members and relatives were executed during the French Revolution, which led him to pursue studies in liberal thought.
He later traveled to the United States during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, observed various regions, and vividly described the lives of people living according to new values that pursued freedom and equality, which later became Democracy in America.

At the age of thirty, defying his family’s opposition, he married Mary Motley, an Englishwoman three years his senior from the commoner class.
During the February Revolution of 1848, he became a member of the revolutionary government, and in the following year he served as foreign minister in the Barrot cabinet, devoting himself to resolving diplomatic issues.
His political abilities were quite remarkable, but in 1851 he was arrested after being caught up in the coup d’état of Louis-Napoleon (later Napoleon III) and withdrew from political life.
Thereafter, he devoted his days to writing and research, leaving behind Recollections and The Old Regime and the Revolution, which depict the period of the February Revolution, and in 1859 he ended his life at the age of fifty-four due to pulmonary tuberculosis in his homeland of France.
He remains one of France’s most distinguished historians and intellectuals.

Chronology
1805, July 29, Born into an old aristocratic family in Cotentin.
1826, June, Earned a bachelor’s degree in law at the University of Paris.
1827, April, Became a trainee judge at the Versailles court.
At this time, he met Gustave de Beaumont.
1829–1830, Deeply influenced by historical lectures given by François Guizot.
1831, April, Traveled to the United States with Beaumont (until February 1832).
1832, May, Resigned as an associate judge at the Versailles court.
1833, Published On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application in France with Beaumont, and received the Montyon Prize of the Académie Française.
1835, January, Published Volume I of Democracy in America.
1835, October, Married Mary Motley.
1838, January, Became a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.
1839, March, Elected to the Chamber of Deputies from Valognes.
1840, April, Published Volume II of Democracy in America.
1841, December, Elected to the Académie Française.
1849, June–September, Served as foreign minister in the Odilon Barrot cabinet.
1851, December, Detained following the coup d’état and thereafter withdrew from political life.
1856, June, Published The Old Regime and the Revolution.
1859, April 26, Died in Cannes and was buried in May.
1893, Recollections published.

Thought and Philosophy
Democracy in America (De la démocratie en Amérique), written by Tocqueville after traveling through the United States, then an emerging democratic nation in the early nineteenth century, is a classic of modern democratic thought and remains one of the indispensable textbooks for studying the history of the United States and the history of democracy.
In Japan, it was introduced by Yukichi Fukuzawa.

In his writings, he regarded the United States of that time as advancing at the forefront of modern society and believed that it would come to play a pioneering role in a new era.
At the same time, however, he also predicted that a future age of disorder marked by corruption in both the economy and public opinion lay ahead.
He further asserted that democracy is a “tyranny of the majority (of public opinion)” and considered that newspapers, what we would now call the mass media, were responsible for constructing that majority opinion.
He thus foresaw at an early stage the close relationship between the rise of modern media and democratic politics.
He believed that in order to resolve the social turmoil accompanying the corruption and confusion of mass opinion, the presence of so-called “intellectuals,” such as religious leaders, scholars, and elder statesmen, was essential, and he reaffirmed that democratic politics is greatly influenced by the level of education and standard of living of the masses.