The American Character
Explore issues of American identity, character, and citizenship with classic short stories.
In this course, fellows will consider the question of American national character through a close reading of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. They will gain a comprehensive understanding of the unique qualities of American democracy, how it compares to other democratic and nondemocratic regimes, and the grounds for its extraordinary success.
Originally intended to be a guide to help rectify France’s failed attempts at democracy, Tocqueville’s work would end up becoming one of the most detailed, profound narrations of American history and its political tradition.
Image: O. Louis Guglielmi, Town Square (1939)
Jenna Storey and Colleen Sheehan on civic friendship
This course was part of our residential Political Studies Program. Fellows participate in morning seminars and meet prominent men and women in public life over afternoon and evening sessions.
Faculty
Jenna Silber Storey
Jenna Silber Storey is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department at the American Enterprise Institute. She is the co-author of a book with Benjamin Storey: Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment.
Jenna Silber Storey
Jenna Silber Storey is a senior fellow in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she concentrates on political philosophy, civil society, classical schools, and higher education. She is also the co-organizer of a conference series on the future of the American university. Dr. Storey is concurrently a research professor at Furman University, where she was previously assistant professor in politics and international affairs and the executive director of the Tocqueville Program. For the 2022–23 academic year, Dr. Storey is also an alumni-in-residence at the University of Chicago.
In addition to Furman University, Dr. Storey has taught at the University of Chicago; the Buckley Program at Yale University; the Hertog Summer Studies Program in Washington, DC; and the Tikvah Fund in Princeton, New Jersey. Earlier she worked as executive assistant to the superintendent for the Boston University–Chelsea Schools partnership. She served as a board member of Veritas Preparatory School in Greenville, South Carolina, from 2019 to 2021.
Dr. Storey is the coauthor, with her husband, Benjamin Storey, of Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton University Press, 2021). Together, the Storeys are working on a book titled The Art of Choosing: How Liberal Education Should Prepare You for Life.
Download the Full Syllabus
Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session
Session I: What is America?
Readings:
- Jenna Storey, Short biography of Tocqueville
- Frontispiece of the Great Bible, 1539
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Introduction, Democracy in America, pp. 3–15
- Vol. 1, Part 1, Chs. 2 & 3:
- “On the Point of Departure and Its Importance for the Future of the Anglo Americans” and
- “Social States of the Anglo-Americans”
Session II: Politics
Readings:
- Vol. 1, Part 1, Ch. 4: “Of the Principle of the Sovereignty of the People in America”
- Vol. 1, Part 1, Ch. 5: “Necessity of Studying What Takes Place in the Particular States before Speaking of the Government of the Union,” pp. 53–65
- Vol. 2, Part 2, Ch. 20: “How Aristocracy Could Issue from Industry”
- Vol. 2, Part 4, Chs. 1–3 and 6–8:
- “Equality Naturally Gives Men the Taste for Free Institutions,”
- “That the Idea of Democratic Peoples in the Matter of Government Naturally Favorable to the Concentration of Powers,”
- “That the Sentiments of Democratic Peoples are in Accord with Their Ideas to Bring Them to Concentrate Power,”
- “What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear,”
- “Continuation of the Preceding Chapters,” and
- “General View of the Subject”
Session III: Public Opinion, Individualism, & the Family
Readings:
- Vol 2, Part 1, Chs. 1–2 and 5:
- “On the Philosophic Method of the Americans,”
- “On the Principal Source of Beliefs among Democratic Peoples,” and
- “How, in the United States, Religion Knows How to Make Use of Democratic Instincts”
- Vol. 2, Part 3, Chs. 8–12:
- “Influence of Democracy on the Family,”
- “Education of Girls in the United States,”
- “How the Girl is Found Beneath the Features of the Wife,”
- “How Equality of Conditions Contributes to Maintaining Good Mores in America,” and
- “How the Americans Understand the Equality of Man and Woman”
Session IV: Studies & Occupation
Readings:
- Vol. 2, Part 1, Chs. 10 and 17:
- “Why the Americans Apply Themselves to the Practice of the Sciences Rather than to the Theory,” and
- “On Some Sources of Poetry in Democratic Nations”
- Vol. 2, Part 2, Chs. 10–13:
- “On the Taste for Material Well-Being in America,”
- “On the Particular Effects That the Love of Material Enjoyments Produces in Democratic Countries,”
- “Why Certain Americans Display Such an Exalted Spiritualism,” and
- “Why the Americans Show Themselves So Restive in the Midst of Their Well-Being”
- Vol. 2, Part 2, Ch. 16: “How the Excessive Love of Well-Being Can be Harmful to Well-Being”
