Alexis de Tocqueville · 1835 · overland

Alexis de Tocqueville's classic grew out of a nine-month journey through the United States in 1831 and 1832, made with his friend Gustave de Beaumont under cover of studying American prisons. Their real subject was democracy itself, and to find it they crossed the young republic from the Atlantic cities to the Michigan frontier, north into French Canada, and down the Ohio and Mississippi by steamboat to New Orleans.

1. 1
   New York

   Two young French magistrates arrive to study American prisons, and stay to study democracy itself.

2. 2
   The Great Lakes

   West to Detroit and on horseback into the Michigan wilderness, the edge of white settlement.

3. 3
   Quebec

   North into French Canada, astonished to find a people so like their own countrymen.

4. 4
   Boston

   Back to Boston, then the seat of American intellect, for a month among its leading minds.

5. 5
   Pittsburgh

   West over the Alleghenies on detestable roads to the head of the Ohio.

6. 6
   Cincinnati

   Down the Ohio by steamboat to the bustling river port of Cincinnati.

7. 7
   New Orleans

   Down the frozen Mississippi, through ice and mishap, to New Orleans by New Year's Day.

8. 8
   Washington

   By stagecoach across the South to the capital, the notebooks for a great book now full.