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Article: Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life.(Book review)
- Article from:
- The Humanist
- Article date:
- March 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 American Humanist Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life
By Hugh Brogan
(Yale UP, 2007)
736 pp.; $35.00
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The democratic will is volatile; its agents, vulgar; its laws, imperfect. I admit all this. But if it is true that soon there will be no middle way between the empire of democracy and the yoke of one man, ought we not to try rather for the former than submit voluntarily to the latter? And if it were necessary to accept complete equality, would it not be better to allow ourselves to be leveled in liberty rather than under a despot?
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