Democracy in America — Volume 2

** "Democracy in America — Volume 2" by Alexis de Tocqueville analyzes how democracy changed American society in the 1800s. It looks at how the idea of everyone being equal affected people's thinking and the rules of society, which was very different from Europe's old system where certain families had all the power. Tocqueville wanted to understand how democracy and the way people think worked together, pointing out both good and bad things about a democratic society. He saw that Americans liked to figure things out for themselves instead of following old philosophical ideas, creating their own way of thinking. He also noticed that they were often unsure about big, abstract ideas and didn't really believe in things they couldn't see. He says that although societies need strong beliefs to stay together, these beliefs are shaped by the democratic spirit of the time, opening up the discussion on how democracy changes how people think, what they believe, and how they act in America at the time. **