Alexis de Tocqueville and American Intellectuals

From His Times to Ours

Matthew Mancini

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
• Year: 2005
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780742568549
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In this groundbreaking new work, Matthew Mancini tells the surprising story of Alexis de Tocqueville's reception in American thought and culture from the time of his 1831 visit to the United States to the turn of the twenty-first century. The author uncovers an historical record that is replete with unmistakable evidence of Tocqueville's continuing importance to American intellectuals throughout the post-Civil War period of his supposed oblivion, and also of his reputation being exaggerated by recent historians referring to the post-World War II decades.

Through comprehensive analysis of Tocqueville's published works, Mancini critically examines the ways in which Tocqueville's ideas have been received and, at times, misunderstood. Mancini challenges almost every element of the common understanding of Tocqueville's reception into American intellectual culture while recovering and re-examining many important intellectuals of the last 150 years. In doing so, Mancini inscribes an important chapter in American cultural history, namely the idea of Tocqueville himself.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• CHAPTER ONE - Reception and Renown
• CHAPTER TWO - At Old Mrs. Otis’s
• CHAPTER THREE - The American Old Regime
• CHAPTER FOUR - The Myth of Oblivion
• CHAPTER FIVE - Enduring Sage
• CHAPTER SIX - A Cottage Industry
• CHAPTER SEVEN - Lumpers and Splitters
• Index
• About the Author