Why did the French Revolution lead to the crimes of the Terror, whereas the American Revolution brought forth a liberal democracy? Alexis de Tocqueville spent a lifetime trying to understand the paradox. This first book on the genesis of Tocqueville's Democracy in America considers his two main themes of democracy and revolution in the light of his own early political activities and his subsequent studies of the past, and thereby makes a valuable contribution to intellectual history.

In tracing the evolution of Tocqueville's work, Lamberti reveals Tocqueville's enormous intellectual debt to Montesquieu; skillfully analyzes all that separates Tocqueville from the liberal French school, particularly Benjamin Constant and François Guizot; shows that Tocqueville believed that the only means of preventing new revolutions (which he abhorred) was to increase political freedom, especially that of association; sketches the difference between Tocqueville and counter-revolutionaries on the question of individualism, which Tocqueville wished to correct but not annihilate. Never before have historians been able to place Tocqueville so securely in the genealogy of French liberalism. This new work demonstrates his relevance to the world today.

Jean-Claude Lamberti is Professor of Sociology at the University of Paris (Sorbonne).

Arthur Goldhammer received the French-American Translation Prize in 1990 for his translation of A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution.

Read More by Arthur Goldhammer:

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• A History of Private Life, Volume IV, From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War
• A History of Private Life, Volume V, Riddles of Identity in Modern Times
• The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944
• A History of Women in the West, Volume I, From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints
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• A History of Women in the West, Volume V, Toward a Cultural Identity in the Twentieth Century
• A History of Women in the West, Volume IV, Emerging Feminism from Revolution to World War
• A History of Women in the West, Volume III, Renaissance and the Enlightenment Paradoxes
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• Paris: Capital of the World
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