This is a book for Tocqueville fans only. It contains hundreds of Tocqueville's and Beaumont's letters from their American trip and from Tocqueville's diaries (as well as some of Tocqueville's letters pertaining to the publication of Democracy in America). If you like that sort of thing, you will love this book. His letters and diaries really help to illuminate how his thinking developed. At the very least, they are a great picture of American politics and society in the 1830's.