Tocqueville and the American Tradition Series (Lecture 1) Modernity and its Prospects: Tocquevillian Thoughts

Joshua Mitchell, Professor of Government, Georgetown University

In the first in a series of lectures on the subject of Tocqueville and America, Mitchell observed that Tocqueville’s analysis of America and democracy more generally holds profound and troubling implications for various global efforts at democratization, and more specifically, that America’s exceptionalism rests in its lack of an aristocratic past.

September 20, 2007 -- Georgetown Hotel Conference Center
Audio