Seymour Drescher: An Appreciation

This article is the first part of a study of the work of Professor Seymour Drescher as a Tocqueville scholar. Beginning with an account of Professor Drescher’s early life and career, it then focuses upon three aspects of his contribution to Tocqueville scholarship during the 1960s: his groundbreaking exploration of the influence of English institutions and society upon Tocqueville’s life and thought; Drescher’s seminal analysis of the relationship between the 1835 and the 1840 volumes of Democracy in America; and, thirdly, Drescher’s bringing to light of the previously neglected writings of Tocqueville on social reform, pauperism prison reform, and the abolition of slavery, and, through this, his reappraisal of the intellectual relationship between Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont.