How long does it take to read Democracy in America?
Alexis de Tocqueville, Gustave de Beaumont
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, Gustave de Beaumont takes about 7 hours 46 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 7 hours 46 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1835. 424 pages, about 116,600 words.
16 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 12 hours 57 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 7 hours 46 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 52 minutes |
The page count is the median across 424 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
A contemporary study of the early American nation and its evolving democracy, from a French aristocrat and sociologist. In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, set out from post-revolutionary France on a journey across America that would take him 9 months and cover 7,000 miles. The result was Democracy in America, a subtle and prescient analysis of the life and institutions of 19th-century America. 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 and even divine will. His study of the strengths and weaknesses of an evolving democratic society has been quoted by every American president since Eisenhower, and remains a key point of reference for any discussion of the American nation or the democratic system.
Subjects: Early America, American government, Democracy, American culture, American society, Ethnography of America
