It is a truism, but also sometimes true, that the keenest observers of a situation are people who stand outside of that situation.
Take Alexis de Toqueville, the French sociologist who visited the young United States in the 1830s. He was impressed by the country (and also horrified at times), and ended up writing several books, including one that saw something exceptional in the American democratic experiment.
The Democracy Project at Southern Oregon University looks to the works of Toqueville in a session offered exclusively here on the JX. SOU Philosophy Chair Prakash Chenjeri returns to talk Toqueville.