The book every new American citizen — and every old one, too — should read; Washington Post, 12/17/15

Carlos Lozada, Washington Post; The book every new American citizen — and every old one, too — should read:

"Fortunately, there’s this little book called “Democracy in America” — written 175 years ago by, of all people, some know-it-all foreigner.

It’s embarrassing to admit that I’d never read Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic work until now, but I’m glad I picked this year to do it. Few books have been so often cited and imitated, so I won’t presume to offer more insight than this: “Democracy in America” is an ideal book to read as a new citizen. Yes, it’s really long and stuffed with annoying, self-referential French digressions. (I can say that sort of thing now, I’m American!) But it also explains perfectly to a brand-new compatriot so much of the essential minutiae of life here, so much of what America is and was, so much of what it risks losing...

“Democracy in America” also captures the fights between security and liberty, a battleground long before Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency, religious tests and Syrian refugees. “What good does it do me, after all,” Tocqueville asks, “if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life?”

For Tocqueville, that authority threatens whenever it expands its scope."