Ceaser, whose Liberal Democracy and Political Science (1990) argues for the continuing relevance of a Tocquevillian understanding of politics, concedes that “Tocqueville seems to have underestimated the possibilities of modern technology.” As Eduardo Nolla points out in his definitive new edition of Tocqueville’s masterwork Democracy in America, “there is perhaps no point on which modern critics of Tocqueville are in more agreement than on his ignorance of … matters of industry, of the process of urbanization, and the little attention that he gave to steamboats, canals, railroads and other technical progress.” Historian Garry Wills mocks Tocqueville for “ around on steamboats without noticing how crucially they were changing American life,” and argues that Tocqueville’s relative silence in his great work about “American capitalism, manufactures, banking, technology” shows that he simply didn’t “get” America. French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) is revered for his almost prophetic powers of foresight concerning countless aspects of modern society.
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