ABSTRACT
tribute has often been paid to the amazing percipience of De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, but this tribute has usually referred to the political and sociological sections of that great book. It is not until one has been to the United States, and then read De Tocqueville, that one realizes how completely he covered every aspect of American life, and always with the same realistic insight and prophetic vision. I read his book on the way back from my first visit to that country, and its immediate effect was to deprive me of any desire I might have had to write about my own experiences or to record my own impressions. Every detail seemed to have been anticipated by De Tocqueville. It is not merely a book about America: it is a work of universal significance, ranking to my mind with Plato’s Republic and Laws, and much more relevant to our present needs than books like the Leviathan and the Esprit des Lois.
