[Clive]
Hugh Brogan’s eagerly-awaited biography of Tocqueville, receives five-star treatment from the London Observer. I can’t wait to read it:
He was 26 years old when he landed in America, a sophisticated, inquisitive, patronising Parisian so unprepared to find even a semblance of polite society in New York that he had to write home at once for silk stockings, cravats and 24 pairs of kid gloves. The US overturned all his preconceptions. ‘Everyone shakes hands,’ he reported with incredulity. The Protestant religion shocked him deeply, and so did the self-respect of servants who felt they had a perfect right to chat to their employers, and waiters who sat down at table with their customers. In Washington he and his travelling companion were astounded by the simplicity of the presidential palace, where Andrew Jackson poured their drinks himself with no sign of attendant guards or courtiers.
The Dish 