Democracy In America, (In Relation To Political Institutions.) By Alexis De Tocqueville. Translated By Henry Reeve, Esq. New-York: J. & H. G. Langley, 1845. Publisher's full leather covered boards. xiv, 460pp. Measures 7 3/4" x 4 3/4". RARE and important book. Very hard to find this early edition.
English translation of "De la democratie en Amerique," first published
in French in 1835. Tocqueville's extremely important and influential
analysis of American democracy is "one of the most important texts in
political literature." (PMM). Democracy in America is "the first
systematic and empirical study of the effects of political power on
modern society" (Nisbet). Overall, Tocqueville's conclusions were that
the trend of history would irresistibly lean towards equality; and that
the future of France, indeed of the Western world, was bound up with the
acceptance of democratic principles, these being the one effective
means of avoiding submission to tyranny (Harvey and Heseltine, 711).