Leo Damrosch talked about his book Tocqueville’s Discovery of America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010). He followed Alexis de Tocqueville’s nine-month travels throughout the United States from 1831-1832 and examined Tocqueville’s subsequent book, Democracy in America. Tocqueville’s writings on Jacksonian America presented a changing social and political landscape where the French visitor applauded much of American culture but was critical of slavery and materialism. In his book Professor Damrosch included letters and papers that had never before appeared in English. Video clips from the 1997-98 C-SPAN series on Tocqueville’s travels were shown.
Leo Damrosch is the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature at Harvard University. His previous books feature Rousseau, James Boswell, and Samuel Johnson.