This translation of Alexis de Tocqueville's political classic Democracy in America by Henry Reeve, a distinguished nineteenth-century British man of letters and friend of Tocqueville, is the only contemporaneous translation of Tocqueville's work into English. Unlike some recent translations that slavishly hew to a literal word-for-word translation of the text, this Reeve translation treats Tocqueville's book as the great piece of literature it is. Reeve captures Tocqueville's ideas and renders them into beautiful English worthy of a native speaker. In fact, it was for these reasons Tocqueville himself approved of Reeve's translation.