DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA
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- 10,99 €
Descrizione dell’editore
The “Democracy in America” was the first analysis of American political life. The first part of the book was published in 1835, the second - in 1840. This book was considered a classic statement of the ideology of liberal democracy. Tocqueville's historical concept was that instead of the age-old power of the aristocracy everywhere inevitably comes democracy. He idealized the political life of the USA, opposed his super-centralized France of his time…
Read the book till the end to know it! Make your own decision about the democracy of past years!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It's hard to think of a work that has so influenced our understanding of the United States as this still the most authoritative, reflective set of observations about American institutions and the American character ever written. That its author was a Frenchman, and an aristocrat at that, and that he was balanced and penetrating has often occasioned rueful surprise. However, de Tocqueville's distance from his subject is precisely what lends his observations such continuing currency. A few decades ago, for instance, we read Tocqueville for his prediction that Russia and the United States would one day contest for pre-eminence. Now, we ought to read him (Iraqis and Afghans should, too) for his classic analyses of the link between political parties and free associations and for his reflections on such matters as religion and public life, and "self-interest properly understood." But many solid translations exist. Why another? Because the Library of America would be incomplete without this canonical work of history and sociology. And this translation by Goldhammer, the dean of American translators from the French, accomplishes what it's hard to believe possible: it lends to this unalterably grave work some zest. Never slipping into slang, it gives a colloquial cast, fitting for our time, to a work normally rendered only with high solemnity. The Library of America claims that its editions will stay in print forever. This one's likely to stand that test.