Category: Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville: America’s Social and Political French Connection

On April 30, 1789, George Washington stood on a balcony in New York, his hand on the Bible. Before a large crowd at Federal Hall on Wall Street, he took the oath of office to be the nation’s first president under its new constitution. Less than three months later, the nation that practically assured America’s…


Preston Manning: Beyond Left and Right

Commentary Much of the current commentary on North American politics is still couched—too much so—within the old left-right-centre conceptualization of political ideology and parties. The Biden Democrats in the United States and the Trudeau Liberals in Canada both denounce their principal opponents as “right-wing extremists.” Conservatives in both countries accuse their federal governments of “catering…


Book Review: ‘The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville’

Arguably the preeminent scholar on Alexis de Tocqueville has written a new biography on the French aristocrat who defied aristocracy in favor of democracy. Olivier Zunz, the James Madison Professor of History at the University of Virginia, has assembled a studious work on the life of an incredibly studious man. “The Man Who Understood Democracy:…