书名：Democracy in America 论美国的民主/民主在美国
作者：Alexis de Tocqueville阿历克西·德·托克维尔
出版社名称：Signet Classics
出版时间：2012
语种：英文
ISBN：9780451531605
商品尺寸：10.6 x2.9 x 17.3 cm
包装：简装
页数：400 （以实物为准）

Democracy in America《论美国的民主》是法国著名政论思想家托克维尔的代表作。在书中，托克维尔以他游历美国的经验，从古典自由主义的思想传统出发，探索美国的民主制度及其根源，这本书成为社会学的早期重要著作之一。

推荐理由：
1. 十九世纪睿智大思想，了解美国民主之书；
2. 世界学术界第1部对美国社会、政治体制和民情进行社会学研究的著作；
3. 首部论述民主制度的专著，著名社会学著作之一。

French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic treatise on the American way of life. 

Over 175 years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville, an astute political scientist, came to the United States to evaluate the meaning and actual functioning of democracy. Here, Tocqueville discusses the advantages and dangers of majority rule--which he thought could be as tyrannical as the rule of a monarchy. He analyzes the influence of political parties and the press on the government and the effect of equality on the social, political, and economic life of the American people. He also offers some startling predictions about world politics, which history has borne out. So brilliant and penetrating are his comments and criticisms, they have vital meaning today for all who are interested in democracy.

Abridged and with an Introduction by Richard D. Heffner
and an Afterword by Vartan Gregorian

Review
“No better study of a nation’s institutions and culture than Tocqueville’s Democracy in America has ever been written by a foreign observer.”  —The New York Times

“An extremely skillful job which gives us the essence of Tocqueville’s great commentary.”  —Richard Hofstadter

Democracy in America《论美国的民主》是法国政治学家、社会学家托克维尔亲自在美国进行长期考察后写出的一部举世公认的世界名著。本书上卷包括美国的地理环境、种族状况、英裔移民带到北美的影响、美国联邦制的优点与其他国家联邦制的比较、联邦政府与各州政府的关系、政党产生的原因、政治社团的作用、舆论的作用等方面；中心思想是阐明美国的民主、自由、平等是如何在政治生活和社会生活中体现的。下卷是以美国的民主思想和美国的民情为背景分析了美国人的哲学观念、宗教思想、科学理论、文学、艺术、社会心理、民族性格等等方面。同时，与英法等国为代表的西欧国家的类似问题作了对比。

阿历克西·德·托克维尔，19世纪法国政治理论家、历史学家、政治家。托克维尔于19世纪法国大革命的血色黄昏中，深入考察了“自由平等”“尊重权力”“尊崇法制”“主权分享”“均势制衡”等原则对美国政治制度与民情的影响。托克维尔在西方被尊为社会改革先知，他的学说对民主思潮有着深远的影响。其代表作有：《论美国的民主》《旧制度与大革命》。

Alexis de Tocqueville was born in 1805 to a noble French family that had survived the French Revolution. His father gained some political power under the reign of the Bourbons, and after the July Revolution of 1830, the family was exiled along with the king. Tocqueville, then twenty-five years old, stayed in France, swearing allegiance to the new government. Shortly thereafter he and a friend, Gustave de Beaumont, sought and received a government assignment to study the prison system of the United States. They arrived in America in 1831. After extensive travels across the young nation, Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America (published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840). The publication of the first volume made Tocqueville a well-known figure, but he led a quiet life, accepting modest governmental posts, traveling around Europe, and marrying an Englishwoman. In 1848, Tocqueville once again rose to political prominence after a prescient speech that foretold of revolution. After serving through the massive upheavals and overthrows of government, Tocqueville retired from political life in 1849. Always weak in health, his lung disease grew progressively worse from that period on. Moving south several times on doctor’s recommendations, Tocqueville succumbed to death in Cannes in 1859. 

Richard D. Heffner received his A.B. and M.A. from Columbia University and has taught history and political science at the University of California, Sarah Lawrence College, and the New School for Social Research. He has been University Professor of Communications and Public Policy at Rutgers since 1964. Mr. Heffner also produces and moderates his prize-winning weekly public television series, The Open Mind, and for twenty years was Chairman of the motion picture industry’s film rating system. In addition to Democracy in America, Mr. Heffner is the editor of the Mentor book A Documentary History of the United States. 

Vartan Gregorian is the twelfth president of Carnegie Corporation of New York. Prior to his current position, Gregorian served for nine years (1989-1997) as president of Brown University and for eight years (1981-1989) as President of the New York Public Library. He became founding dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania in 1974 and four years later became its twenty-third provost. Gregorian, an historian, was a professor at San Francisco State University, UCLA, University of Texas at Austin, Penn, and Brown.