In Our Time
In Our Time
BBC Radio 4
Tocqueville: Democracy in America
50 minutes Posted Mar 22, 2018 at 4:15 am.
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Show notes

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) and his examination of the American democratic system. He wrote De La Démocratie en Amérique in two parts, published in 1835 and 1840, when France was ruled by the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe. Tocqueville was interested in how aspects of American democracy, in the age of President Andrew Jackson, could be applied to Europe as it moved away from rule by monarchs and aristocrats. His work has been revisited by politicians ever since, particularly in America, with its analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of direct democracy and its warnings of mediocrity and the tyranny of the majority.

With

Robert Gildea

Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford

Susan-Mary Grant

Professor of American History at Newcastle University

and

Jeremy Jennings

Professor of Political Theory and Head of the School of Politics & Economics at King's College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.