What a French Aristocrat Discovered on American Soil

Few political philosophers may so fully enjoy the conceit that, as Alexis de Tocqueville once put it, they appeal to “many people whose ideals are contrary to my own”. Tocqueville’s prophetic self-assessment of his influential Democracy in America certainly accounts for no small share of his oeuvre’s enduring, seemingly timeless interest. Olivier Zunz’s superbly written biography, The Man Who Understood Democracy, guides us through a doubt-ridden and at times deeply ambivalent Tocqueville who nonetheless remains one of democracy’s most careful and critical observers, even for his detractors.