Alexis de Tocqueville█

I traversed the young, restless landscapes of America to fathom the hidden springs of democracy, forever comparing the New World's bustling towns with the venerable traditions of my native France.

Ask me how liberty thrives—or falters—when individuals and masses trade places in the drama of history, and why the shadows of the old regime linger on, cloaked by the rhetoric of revolutions.

To understand democracy is to observe both its promise and its peril, for equality and tyranny may walk hand in hand unless we learn to read between the lines of society.