Alexis de Tocqueville is hailed almost universally as the supreme oracle of the modern age, but on nearly every essential point the nineteenth-century French writer has been proven wrong. While it’s easy to explain why Tocqueville was widely off target, it’s hard to understand why ideologically diverse contemporary commentators have been led astray.

Daniel Choi is an independent software developer and writer, and a member of Betahouse, a software development cooperative in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
American HistoryDemocracyGovernment and PoliticsLaw and LibertyPhilosophy and ReligionPolitical HistoryPolitical Theory
Other Independent Review articles by Daniel Choi
Spring 2001 Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality
Winter 1998/99 The Growth of the Liberal Soul