Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents ix
3. Preface xiii
4. Acknowledgments xxvii
5. Introduction: A Brief Life of Alexis de Tocqueville xxix
6. Part I. TRIPLE-ALIENATED MAN
7. 1. Identity in a Time of Historical Transition 3
8. 2. Class: Between Two Worlds 11
9. 3. Intimacy 37
10. 4. Ambition 51
11. 5. Melancholy 59
12. 6. Skeptical Romantic 63
13. 7. Skeptical Philosophe 66
14. 8. Skepticism and Religion: “Une Ombre Vaine” 72
15. 9. Doubt and the Will to Believe 79
16. 10. Exile: Voiceless in Cannes 83
17. Part II. THE CALLING OF POLITICS
18. 1. Vocation: Politics as Calling—Tocqueville’s “Beau Rêve” 103
19. 2. Vocation: The Responsibilities of Political Leaders 114
20. 3. The Dead Sea of Politics 123
21. 4. Tocqueville’s Aristocratic Liberalism 137
22. Part III. WRITING DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA
23. 1. A Moral Landscape 151
24. 2. A Moral History 157
25. 3. Escape 162
26. 4. The New World: Fable, Romance, History 168
27. 5. Tocqueville in the Wilderness 174
28. 6. Transformations 189
29. 7. Beginning Democracy in America 198
30. 8. Influences: Voices in the Tower 208
31. 9. Writing as Moral Act 236
32. 10. History as Moral Drama 253
33. 11. The Birth of a Book 273
34. Part IV. TOCQUEVILLE’S AMERICA
35. 1. Tocqueville’s American Notebooks and Democracy in America 279
36. 2. Traveling Through the New Republic with Tocqueville and Beaumont 288
37. 3. Democratic Religion: Mad Messiahs and Chaste Women 299
38. 4. Class in an Egalitarian Society 313
39. 5. Born-Again America: The Creation of an American Identity 321
40. 6. Politics: Order and Disorder in the New Republic 335
41. 7. A Dark Vision of Democracy’s Prospects 354
42. 8. The Democratic Psyche and the Hazards of Equality 360
43. 9. A Culture of Extremes: The Prospects for Freedom in a Culture Without Limits 366
44. Conclusion 378
45. A Brief Chronological Narrative of the Life of Alexis de Tocqueville 383
46. Notes 395
47. Bibliography 421
48. Index 429