Alexis de Tocqueville

A Seminar with Professor John Lukacs
Tuesday, September 16

More than two hundred years after his birth (1805) interest in Alexis de Tocqueville is greater than ever before. He was read and venerated in the United States ever since his publication of Democracy in America, vol. I, in 1835 but, strangely, less so in France -- until relatively recently. Students and scholars of Tocqueville now largely agree that the second volume of Democracy (first published in 1840) is even more telling and relevant than the first. We also know more about the private Tocqueville than before, due to recent serious biographies. Three questions about Tocqueville are still discussed and debated: (1) was he a conservative or a liberal? (2) was he a sociologist or a historian? (3) was he a believing Catholic?

Professor John Lukacs spoke about these questions at the Wynnewood Institute on 16 September, Tuesday, at 7:30 p.m. Furthermore he directed attention to two more questions: how did and does Tocqueville relate to the enormous rise in the power of the American presidency; and to the recent phenomenon of classless societies?

Praised by critics as a historian who has the literary talents of a novelist, John Lukacs is the author of more than 30 books. A recipient of the Ingersoll Prize, his books include Outgrowing Democracy: A Historical Interpretation of the U.S. in the 20th Century (1984); The End of the Twentieth Century and the End of the Modern Age (1993) (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize); and A New Republic: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century (2004), a major statement on the nature of our political system and a critical look at the underpinnings of our society. American democracy, he argues, has been transformed from an exercise in individual freedom and opportunity to a bureaucratic system created by and for the dominance of special groups. In Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred (2005), Lukacs warns that populism renders the US vulnerable to demagoguery.

Lukacs served from 1947-94 as professor of history at Chestnut Hill College, and as its department chairman from 1947-74. He has also served as a visiting professor at many universities, including Columbia, Princeton, Johns Hopkins University, and at the University of Budapest in his native Hungary.