托剋維爾(1805-1859)，法國曆史學傢、社會學傢。主要代錶作有《論美國的民主》第一捲(1835)、《論美國的民主》第二捲(1840年)、《舊製度與大革命〉。《論美國的民主》使他享有世界聲譽。其上捲的第一部分講述美國的政治製度，第二部分對美國的民主進行社會學的分析。下捲分四個部分，以美國為背景發揮其政治哲學和政治社會學思想。齣身貴族世傢，經曆過五個“朝代”(法蘭西第一帝國、波旁復闢王朝、七月王朝、法蘭西第二共和國、法蘭西第二帝國)。前期熱心於政治，1838年齣任眾議院議員，1848年二月革命後參與製訂第二共和國憲法，1849年一度齣任外交部長。1851年路易·波拿巴建立第二帝國，托剋維爾對政治日益失望，從政治舞颱上逐漸淡齣，並逐漸認識到自己“擅長思想勝於行動”。《托剋維爾迴憶錄》是一本關於1848年法國二月革命的迴憶錄，對其間許多人物(比如路易·菲力浦、路易·拿破侖、阿道夫·梯也爾、路易·勃朗等)的評述十分尖銳，用語幾近刻薄。可能由於這個原因，該書在作者死後34年(1893年)纔首次齣版。

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: was inhabited by many indigenous tribes, it may justly be said, at the time of its discovery by Europeans, to have form. ed one great desert. The Indians occupied, without possess- ing it. It is by agricultural labor that man appropriates the soil, and the early inhabitants of North America lived by the produce of the chase. Their implacable prejudices, their uncontrolled passions, their vices, and still more, perhaps, their savage virtues, consigned them to inevitable destruction. The ruin of these nations began from the day when Europeans landed on their shores: it has proceeded ever since, and we are now seeing the completion of it. They seemed to have been placed by Providence-amid the riches of the New World to enjoy them for a season, and then surrender them. Those coasts, so admirably adapted for commerce and industry; those wide and deep rivers; that inexhaustible valley of the 'Mississippi; the whole continent, in short, seemed prepared to be the abode of a great nation, yet unborn. In that land the great experiment was to be made by civilized man, of the attempt to construct society upon a new basis; and it was there, for the first time, that theories hitherto unknown, or deemed impracticable, were to exhibit a spectacle for which the world had not been prepared by the history of the past. CHAPTER II. ORIGIN OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS AND ITS IMPORTANCE, lit RELATION TO THEIR FUTURE CONDITION. Utility of knowing the Origin of Nations in order to understand their social Condition and their Laws.?America the only Country in which the Starting-Point of a great People has been clearly observable.?In what respects all who emigrated to British America were similar.?In what they differed.?Remark applicable to all the Europeans who established themselves on the shores ...