Tocqueville In America Author:George Wilson Pierson abridged by Dudley C. Lunt This is the narrative of an intellectual adventure and the story behind the writing of Tocqueville's classic Democracy In America. In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville and his friend Gustave de Beaumont embarked upon a nine-month tour of the United States. The ostensible purpose of the trip of the two young French magistrates was to study the American ... more »prison system, on which they did indeed prepare a report. But in the course of their journey, which took them as far west as Green Bay, as far north as Quebec, and as far south as New Orleans, they made many observations upon the United States and Canada, out of which came, eventually, Democracy In America. In his book about this trip, George Wilson Pierson has taken excerpts from the traverer's letters and journals to make an extraordinary picture of early nineteenth-century America as seen through the eyes of two intelligent Frenchmen. In addition, he has given an account of the actual writing of Democracy In America, together with an analysis of the strengths and defects of this famous book.« less