Notes On Publication
Gutenberg version
Translator Henry Reeve 1813-1895
Release Date: January 21, 2006 [Ebook #815]
From Wikipedia
In 1831, he obtained from the July Monarchy a mission to examine prisons and penitentiaries in America, and proceeded there with his lifelong friend Gustave de Beaumont. While Tocqueville did visit some prisons, he traveled widely in America and took extensive notes about his observations and reflections.[3] He returned within nine months, and published a report, but the real result of his tour was De la démocratie en Amerique, which appeared in 1835.[4]
In Democracy in America, published in 1835, Tocqueville wrote of the New World and its burgeoning democratic order. Observing from the perspective of a detached social scientist, Tocqueville wrote of his travels through America in the early 19th century when the market revolution, Western expansion, and Jacksonian democracy were radically transforming the fabric of American life.[3]
One purpose of writing Democracy in America, according to Joshua Kaplan, was to help the people of France get a better understanding of their position between a fading aristocratic order and an emerging democratic order, and to help them sort out the confusion.[3] Tocqueville saw democracy as an equation that balanced liberty and equality, concern for the individual as well as for the community.