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In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, made a nine-month journey through America. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the strengths and weaknesses of the nation's evolving politics and institutions. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age – even that they were the will of God. His insightful work has become one of the most influential political texts ever written on America and an indispensable authority for anyone interested in the future of democracy. This volume includes the rarely translated Two Weeks in the Wilderness, an evocative account of Tocqueville's travels in Michigan among the Iroquois and Chippeway, and Excursion to Lake Oneida. This is the only edition that contains all Tocqueville's writings on America, and it includes a chronology, further reading and explanatory notes.