Download Tocqueville on American Character: Why Tocqueville's Brilliant Exploration of the American Spirit is as Vital and Important Today as It Was Nearly Two Hundred Years Ago epub

When I first read Tocueville's Democracy in America back at Fresno State University in 1984, I was struck with the superb and accurate analysis of American politics, culture, and society. Last week when I saw Ledeen's book, I was intrigued again and looked forward to more challenging, insightful analysis of the American character. However, don't let the elevated status of Toqueville's name begile you into thinking this is a work of another master. Ledeen dissapointed me greatly. He unfortunately takes events that he is interested in challenging, takes some quotes from the master, and attempts to suit his own intended outcome. For example, in an interesting discussion about American tycoons, Ledeen extols the virtues of good old fashioned competition with several anecdotes about self-made millionaires and billionaires, among them Carnegie, Gates, and Milken. Then, in a Faustian twist of sorts, he throws in two paragraphs about education, and how since the 60's, liberal thinking has taken competition out of education, and instead created a class of individuals who don't understand the concept of failure inherent in any competitive enterprise, especially the economy. Then in a surprise attack, he quotes General George Patten, that "the American people hate a loser." So 200 years of education are narrawed into two paragraphs! This sort of invalid syllogism happens over and over in Ledeen's book. He later reiterates (seemingly echoing the same tired mantra of Ollie North and Rush Limbuagh) how Bill Clinton undermined the national character, saying nothing of the overt character flaws in public officials throughout the past, including Bob Dole or Ollie North! It is a really pathetic attempt to take such a scholarly work as Tocquevilles and try to make out of context connections to today's so-called "national character." ...
Brad Pearl

Many people in America have not read Alexis de Tocqueville's brilliant analysis of the American character, as he experienced on his trip to the United States in 1826. That's too bad, because his work brilliantly defines what is different about American society from any other one on Earth. As an aristocratic Frenchman, perhaps it was easier for him to see us as we are, by seeing how different we are from Europeans, Canadians, and Mexicans.
The concept of the book is to summarize de Tocqueville, and then to test his observations against what has happened since. I have not seen that done before, and looked forward to seeing the results.
When Michael Ledeen is describing de Tocqueville, or political thinking of that time, the book is superb. If the book had stopped there, it would have been a five star book. So if you want to read it for that background, you will be well rewarded. Alternatively, you can read de Tocqueville directly. I would prefer the original, but either would serve.
In his contemporary commentary on America, Mr. Ledeen is basically giving us a political sociology analysis. For such work, it is helpful to have facts that look from various perspectives and dimensions. The first problem with this book is that Mr. Ledeen prefers to give just one anecdote or one fact, and build his observations from that. That approach works well for stimulating debate, but falls short of being convincing about our unique character. I found this approach very suspect.
Second, Mr. Ledeen prefers to always come at the problem from the perspective of being paranoid about losing our ideal character. I think his point of view is a valid one, but there are others. For example, one can also talk optimistically about how we routinely avoid certain traps (like having the best people decide to become politicians, or failing to use private institutions to serve important social needs). Those other perspectives are missing. The result is a book that seems like an anti-Democrat (as in the political party) rant in many places.
The third problem is that the book seems to have been weakly researched. Facts and details seem just a little out of focus, as though drawn from long-remembered impressions, rather than real knowledge or research.
For example, I rarely see Jack Welch's (the famous CEO of General Electric) name misspelled in any publication or book. But in this book, he was "Welsh" all the way through. Now, I believe Mr. Welch is an Irishman by background, so I don't think it's an accurate description of his familial history, either.
Then, the book goes on to describe his Mr. Welch's pronouncements of 1980 as creative destruction. The ideas that Mr. Welch advocated in that year were well established and broadly in application throughout American business when he pursued them. He primarily was advocating that the company stay in businesses in which it could be the leader or have the second place in market share. He solved the company's deficiencies by simply selling the lower market share operations, not by destroying them. For example, Utah International (a mining operation) was sold within months of his taking the helm. It was only later that Mr. Welch began to downsize the remaining General Electric operations to get rid of excess layers of bureaucatic fat.
The ideas Mr. Welch advocated later in his career were actually more important to General Electric's success, such as freeing General Electric Capital to be very entrepreneurial, focusing on leadership training, and implementing Six Sigma. So at best, Mr. Welch is misdescribed due to misfocus in Mr. Ledeen's example. At worst, Mr. Ledeen simply doesn't seem to grasp the example. There are several other sections of the book that display these kinds of fundamental flaws about contemporary observations.
As a result, I have to grade the analysis of current society somewhere in the two to three star range, creating an average of three and a half or four stars for the whole book.
After you finish reading this book, test its thesis by thinking about the evolution of American business. De Tocqueville did not have too much to say about that institution. Mr. Ledeen has somewhat more to say, suggesting it is an inheritor of the free association tendency of Americans. But I wonder if it is not something more. Is it not the case that business is replacing many of the other institutions in its effectiveness and broader social focus? Now that theme would make an interesting book.
Guard your liberty jealously, from all who threat it . . . including a greedy or thoughtless majority, sloppy thinking, or corrupt leaders. Trust must be earned.

Written with a sickeningly sweet naivete which only a true believing romantic could appreciate. Ledeen seems to think there is no class system in America, that regardless of wealth all Americans accept each other equally, and that anyone can run and become president. I wasn't sure which planet he lived on until a few days later, his name came up on [...] under a search for "neo-conservative." The neo-conservative movement and the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) should be thoroughly reviewed by all voting Americans before the upcoming 2004 election. Searches on the web for these keywords should display some interesting results. Enough said.

I only bought this book becaue it only cost $2.00, and I knew it would be a joke anyway. I tried to keep an open mind while reading it, but found it little more than a re-hash of Toqueville's book albeit with a neo-con spin.
Ledeen by the way is widely suspected of orchestrating the 'Iraqi yellow-cake' rumor on behalf of his puppetmasters in the Israeli lobby.
Not a good choice of authors for this 'unextraordinary rendition' of a timeless classic...