George Wilson Pierson
***** 777 pages
I stumbled upon this book at 3rd Place Books and bought it without hesitation. I had always wanted to read it since taking an NEH Seminar on Tocqueville at Kenyon College in 1988. The book is everything it was cracked-up to be: thorough, balanced, well written, and full of information about not only Tocqueville and the origins of his ideas, but also the United States in 1831. Traveling with his friend, Gustave Beaumont, Tocqueville traversed a broad swath of US geography and society, journeying to three of the four corners of the country, New York, Michigan territory, and New Orleans. Travel in the 1830s was rigorous and not without its dangers. Two of the steamboats they traveled on sank, they had to walk twenty miles through knee deep snow in Kentucky, and slept out in the deep woods of Michigan.
One of the best aspects of Tocqueville in America is the extensive and informative footnotes that Pierson employed. He identifies almost every person they talked to, explaining their role in society, accomplishments, and significance for Tocqueville's thought. Essentially, he combed Tocqueville and Beaumont's journals and letters, the newspapers of the day, and litterally follows their progress day by day on their explorations. One of the best reads I've had all year.
