Alexis de Tocqueville: Human Rights, Slavery, and Race Relations

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Human Rights, Slavery and Race Relations

See also Writings on the United States and Canada (Including Democracy in America)

If there be a country in the world where the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people can be fairly appreciated,  where it can be studied in its application to the affairs of society, and where its dangers and its advantages may be foreseen, that country is assuredly America.

Alexis de Tocqueville, American Institutions and Their Influence 53 (A.S. Barnes & Co. 1854)

Beasley, Edward James, The Victorian Reinvention of Race: New Racisms and the Problem of Grouping in the Human Sciences (NY: Routledge, 2010). Includes chapter on Democracy in America and on Tocqueville’s Algerian writings discussing race. Also discusses Tocqueville’s reaction to Gobineau’s theories on race.

Behnegar, Alice Parker, Feminism and Liberalism: The Problem of Equality (Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1994). Includes chapters on Tocqueville and Hobbes.

Beloff, Max, Tocqueville & Gobineau: On Race, Revolution and Despair, 67(1) Encounter 29-31 (1986).

Boesche, Roger, The Prison: Tocqueville’s Model For Despotism, 33(4) Western Political Quarterly 550-563 (1980).

Bonetto, Gerald M., Tocqueville and American Slavery, 15(2) Canadian Review of American Studies 123-139 (1984).

Boryczka, Jocelyn M., The Separate Spheres Paradox: Habitual Inattention and Democratic Citizenship, in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 281 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Botting, Eileen Hunt, A Family Resemblance: Tocqueville and Wollstonecraftian Protofeminism, in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 99 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Bourbon-Busset, J. de, Sur Tocqueville et Gobineau, in La Table Ronde, January 1948, (no paging available).

Boyd, Richard, Imperial Fathers and Favorite Sons: J. S. Mill, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Nineteenth Century Visions of Empire, in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 225 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Cabanas Enriquez, Miguel Angel, American Eyes: Negotiation and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Travel Narratives in the Americas (Dissertation, University of Connecticut, 2000).

Carey, Christine, Annotated Bibliography, in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 337 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon). Materials useful to a study of Tocqueville’s thought on women and gender.

Carlson, David Jeffrey, Institutions of Self: Law, Colonialism, and Autobiography in Nineteenth-Century America (Dissertation, Indiana University, 2000).

Ceaser, James, Reconstructing America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). Includes discussion of the Tocqueville-Gobineau debate.

Colwell, James L., “The Calamities Which They Apprehend”: Tocqueville on Race in America, 21 Western Humanities Review 93-100 (1967).

Crouthamel, James L., Tocqueville’s South, 2(4) Journal of the Early Republic 381-401 (1982).

Cruikshank, Barbara, Tocqueville’s Authority: Feminism and Reform “Between Government and Civil Society,” in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 305 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Dahl, Adam, Tocqueville’s Cultural Racism, Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Portland, Oregon, March 22, 2012.

Diani, Marco, Baudrillard’s Explorations of Tocqueville’s America: Wandering in Hyperdemocracy, in Issues in Travel Writing: Empire, Spectacle, and Displacement 123-134 (Kristi Siegel, ed.; NY: Peter Lang, 2002).

Dion, Stephane, Durham et Tocqueville sur la colonisation liberale, 25(1) Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’Études Canadiennes 60-77 (Spring 1990).

Europe, revue mensuelle; numero consacré au comte de Gobineau … (Paris: F. Rieder, 1923). Originally published as 9 Europe Issue 1, October 1923. Includes R. Rolland, Le conflit de deux generations: Tocqueville et Gobineau.

Fanuzzi, Robert, Taste, Manners, and Miscegenation: French Racial Politics in the US, 19(3) American Literary History 573-602 (Fall 2007). Thought of Tocqueville, de Beaumont, Jacques-Pierre Brissot.

Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Fritz, Harry W., Racism and Democracy in Tocqueville’s America, 13(3) The Social Sciene Journal 65-76 (October 1976).

Galdieri, Christopher J., Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and the American Enterprise, 42(1) Extrapolation 65-74 (Spring 2001).

Gensler, William George, Alexis de Tocqueville and the condition of equality (Master’s thesis, Canisius College, 1963).

Gershman, Sally, Alexis de Tocqueville and Slavery, French Historical Studies 467-483 (Spring 1976).

Gniazdowski, Andrzej, Wolność ras. O debacie Tocqueville—Gobineau, 72 Przegląd Polityczny 122-131 (2005). English translation: Freedom of races. On the debate between Tocqueville and Gobineau.

Goldstein, Leslie Friedman, Europe Looks at American Women, 1820-1840, 54(3) Social Research 519-542 (1987).

Hereth, Michael, Tocqueville : De l’abolition de l’escavage à la colonisation de l’Algérie, in Abenteuer des Geistes: Dimensionen des Politischen, Festschrift für Walter Rothholz (Baden Baden, Nomos Verlag, 2008).

Janara, Laura Alecto, Brothers and Others: Tocqueville and Beaumont, U.S. Genealogy, Democracy, and Racism,  32(6) Political Theory 773-800 (December 2004).

Janara, Laura Alecto, Democracy’s Family Values, in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 47 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Kennedy, Randall, Tocqueville and Racial Conflict in America: A Comment, 11 Harvard BlackLetter Law Journal 145-153 (Spring 1994).

Kerber, Linda K., Separate spheres, female worlds, woman’s place: The rhetoric of women’s history, 75(1) Journal of American History 9-39 (June 1988). Some discussion of Tocqueville’s observation of the female role in early American society.

Keslassy, Eric, Le liberalisme de Tocqueville à l’epreuve du pauperisme (Paris: Harmattan, 2000)(L’ouverture philosophique).

Kohn, Margaret, Empire’s Law: Alexis de Tocqueville on Colonialism and the State of Exception, 41 Canadian Journal of Political Science 255 (2008).

Kohn, Margaret, The Other America: Tocqueville and Beaumont on Race and Slavery, 35(2) Polity 169-193 (Winter 2002).

Lawler, Peter Augustine, Tocqueville on slavery, ancient and modern, 80(4) South Atlantic Quarterly 466-477 (1981).

Liebersohn, Harry, Discovering Indigenous Nobility: Tocqueville, Chamisso and Romantic Travel Writing, 99(3) American Historical Review 746-766 (1994).

Lindqvist, Sven, The three races of America: Alexis de Tocqueville, in The skull measurer’s mistake: and other portraits of men and women who spoke out against racism (NY: New Press, dist. W. W. Norton, 1997).

Locke, Jill, Aristocratic Mourning: Tocqueville, John Quincy Adams, and the Affairs of Andrew Jackson,  in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 125 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Locke, Jill, and Eileen Hunt Botting, Introduction: To Tocqueville and Beyond, in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 1 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Mancini, Matthew, Political Economy and Cultural Theory in Tocqueville’s Abolitionism, 10(2) Slavery & Abolition 151-171 (1989).

Mathie, William, God, Woman, and Morality: The Democratic Family in the New Political Science of Alexis de Tocqueville, 57(1) Review of Politics 7 (1995).

Matsumoto, Reiji, Tocqueville on the Family, 8 Tocqueville Review 127-152 (1986/1987).

May, Gita, Tocqueville on the Role of Women in a Democracy, in Voltaire, the Enlightenment and the Comic Mode: Essays in Honor of Jean Sareil 159 (Maxine G. Cutler ed., NY: Peter Lang, 1990).

McNamara, Carol L., Tocqueville’s Individualism and the Problem of Women and Men in Tom Wolfe’s America, APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting Paper.

Mojtahedit, Hamid Reza, The Oriental “Other” in the Writings of Montesquieu, Tocqueville and J. S. Mill: A Comparative Study (Dissertation, University of Western Ontario, 1996).

Montjoye, Douglas, Zwischen humanitärem Engagement und Frankreichs nationaler Größe: Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) als Verteidiger der Indianer und Befürworter der Unterwerfung Algeriens (Master’s thesis, University of Vienna, 1999).

Morimoto, Shauna A., Naturalizing Gender Inequality: An Examination of Tocqueville and Participatory Politics (Master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin, 2002).

Morton, Frederick L., Sexual Equality and the Family in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, 17(2) Canadian Journal of Political Science 309-324 (1984).

Nesbitt, Nick, On the Political Efficacy of Idealism: Tocqueville, Schoelcher, and the Abolition of Slavery, in America Through European Eyes: British and French Reflections on the New World From the EIghteenth Century to the Present (Aurelian Craiutu and Jeffrey C. Isaac, eds., Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009) at 91.

Nimtz, August H., Marx, Tocqueville and Race in America: The “Absolute Democracy” or “Defiled Republic” (NY: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).

Onfray, Michel, Tocqueville et les Indiens, nègres, ouvriers, Arabes et autres hors-la-loi (Autrement, 2017). 

Reddinger, William Troy, Why Family Matters Most: Montesquieu and Tocqueville on the Political Significance of the Family (Master’s thesis, Northern Illinois University, 2005).

Resh, Richard, Alexis de Tocqueville and the Negro: Democracy in America Reconsidered, 48 Journal of Negro History 251-259 (October 1963).

Richardson, William D., The Possibility of Harmony Between the Races: An Inquiry Into the Thought of Jefferson, Tocqueville, Lincoln and Melville (Dissertation, State University of New York, Buffalo, 1979).

Richter, Melvin, Debate on Race: Tocqueville-Gobineau Correspondence, 25 Commentary 151-160 (February 1958).

Schaub, Diana, On Slavery: Beaumont’s Marie and Tocqueville’s Democracy in America22(4) Legal Studies Forum 607-627 (1998).

Stanley, John L., Majority Tyranny in Tocqueville’s America: The Failure of Negro Suffrage in 1846, 84(3) Political Science Quarterly 412-435 (September 1969).

Staudinger, Alison, Constituting American Women: Tocqueville, Montesquieu, and the Making of Commercial MoresPaper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the WPSA Annual Meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, March 19, 2009.

Stokes, Curtis, Tocqueville and the Problem of Racial Inequality, 75(1/2) Journal of Negro History 1-15 (1990).

Street, Ella, Tocqueville’s Savages, 40 The Tocqueville Review/La Revue Tocqueville 131-161 (2019).

Strong, Robert A., Alexis de Tocqueville and the Abolition of Slavery, 8(2) Slavery & Abolition 204-215 (1987).

Sullivan, Kathleen S., Toward a Generative Theory of Equality, in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 199 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Taslitz, Andrew, How Important Should History Be To Resolving Fourth Amendment Questions, and How Good a Job Does the Supreme Court Do In Construing History?: The Happy Fourth Amendment: History and the People’s Quest For Constitutional Meaning, 43 Texas Tech Law Rev. 137 (Fall 2010).

Teale, Tamara M., The Liberty-Genocide Paradox: American Indians in European and American Travel Literature, 1795 to 1991 (Dissertation, State University of New York, Stony Brook, 1996).

Teale, Tamara M., Tocqueville and American Indian Legal Studies: The Paradox of Liberty and Destruction, 17 The Tocqueville Review 57-66 (1996).

Thiem, Jon, The American Woman in The Coming Race (1871): Bulwer-Lytton’s Fictional Rebuttal to Tocqueville, in Portrayal of America in Various Literatures 19-28 (Wolodymyr T. Zyla, Carl Hammer and Frances Collmar Hernandez Jr., eds., 1978)(Interdepartmental Committee on Comparative Literatures. Monograph Series; 1). get pub. info.

Thiem, Jon, The American Woman in The Coming Race (1871): Bulwer-Lytton’s Fictional Rebuttal to Tocqueville, in Portrayal of America in Various Literatures (Wolodymyr T., Zyla, Carl Hammer, and Frances Collmer Hernandez Jr., Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1978).

Tillery, Alvin B., Jr., Tocqueville as Critical Race Theorist: Whiteness as Property, Interest Convergence, and the Limits of Jacksonian Democracy, 62(4) Political Research Quarterly 639-652 (December 2009).

Tracz-Tryniecki, Marek, Human  Dignity versus Greatness: Tocqueville’s Dilemma, in Tocquevillian Ideas:  Contemporary European Perspectives 111-134 (Zbigniew Rau and Marek Tracz-Tryniecki eds.; Lanham: University Press of America, 2014).

Tracz-Tryniecki, Marek, Tocqueville i kwestia algierska, 103/104 Przegląd Polityczny 195-203 (2010). English translation of the title: Tocqueville and the Algerian question.

Turner, Jack, American Individualism and Structural Injustice: Tocqueville, Gender, and Race, 40(2) Polity 197-215 (April 2008).

Verge, Francine, La Critique de l’egalité chez Tocqueville (Paris: 1981)(Memoire DEA: Philosophie du droit: Paris 2, 1981: Sess. Mars).

Verge, Francine, Le Thème de la famille et de la femme chez Tocqueville (Paris: Université de Paris, 1979)(Memoire DEA: Études politiques: Paris II; 1979: sess. de fev.).

Vetter, Lisa Pace, Sympathy, Equality, and Consent: Tocqueville and Harriet Martineau on Women and Democracy in America, in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 151 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Villa, Dana, Tocqueville and the Feminization of the Bourgeoisie, in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 71 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Viotti, Paul R., Jr., Who Cares About Inequality? Liberalism and Distributive Justice in America (University of California, Santa Cruz, 2008).

Welch, Cheryl B, Beyond the Bon Ménage: Tocqueville and the Paradox of Liberal Citoyennes, in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 19 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Welch, Cheryl B., Colonial Violence and the Rhetoric of Evasion: Tocqueville on Algeria, 31(2) Political Theory 235-264 (April 2003).Includes discussion of his thought on imperialism.

Westfall, W., Tocqueville, Emerson and the Abolitionists, 19(1) Journal of Thought 56-63 (1984).

Winthrop, Delba, Tocqueville’s American Woman and The True Conception of  Democratic Progress,” in Feminist Interpretations of Alexis de Tocqueville 177 (Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting eds.; University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2008)(Re-reading the Canon).

Winthrop, Delba, Tocqueville’s American Woman and “the True Conception of Democratic Progress”, 14(2) Political Theory 239-261 (1986).

Wolfson, Dorothea Israel, The superiority of the American woman: Tocqueville’s teaching on women, marriage and the family (Dissertation, Cornell University, 1995).