Alexis de Tocqueville: A Study of His Thought

FAIN: FA-11534-76

Richard Sennett
New York University (New York, NY 10012-1019)

To connect the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville on America as a new kind of society with his work on the fall of the ancien regime, thus clarifying de Tocqueville's most basic and constant theme--the meaning of equality. de Tocqueville, the first and greatest writer on the difficulties and ambiguities of an equality of conditions in society, looked beyond the idea of equality of opportunity to an "equality of result." de Tocquevilie 1s American audiences have tended to view him as an observer while to the Europeans he is treated more as a theorist, but slighted as an observer. Bringing these two facets of de Tocqueville together will focus on an intellectual problem, bridge two scholarly traditions, and illuminate de Tocqueville's ideas.