Writings on empire and slavery / Alexis de Tocqueville ; edited and translated by Jennifer Pitts.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [263]-269) and index.

Some ideas about what prevents the French from having good colonies (1833) -- First letter on Algeria (23 June 1837) -- Second letter on Algeria (22 August 1837) -- Notes on the Koran (March 1838) -- Notes on the voyage to Algeria in 1841 -- Essay on Algeria (1841) -- Intervention in the debate over the appropriation of special funding (1846) -- First report on Algeria (1847) -- Second report on Algeria (1847) -- The emancipation of slaves (1843).

"Although Tocqueville never published a book-length study of French North Africa, his various writings on the subject provide as invaluable a portrait of French imperialism as Democracy in America does of the Early Republic period in American history. In Writings on Empire and Slavery, Jennifer Pitts has selected and translated nine of his most important dispatches on Algeria, which offer startling new insights into both Tocqueville's political thought and French liberalism's attitudes toward the political, military, and moral aspects of France's colonial expansion. Also included in this collection is Tocqueville's influential call for the abolition of slavery in the French West Indies, an action he felt would regain for France the moral high ground taken by Britain when it abolished slavery in its colonies - even as the conquest and settling of Algeria would unify the French nation and gain for it international respect."--BOOK JACKET.