Tocqueville's two major works, Democracy in America and The Old regime and the revolution, have fared very differently in English translation. The Lawrence translation of Democracy in America is essentially accurate, except for a handful of mistakes. The classical translation by Gilbert of The Old Regime was excessively free and rhetorical, but did not betray lack of understanding of French language or history. A new translation published by University of Chicago Press suffers from the opposite flaws. While trying to follow the original very closely, the translator got many things wrong because of a demonstrable lack of proficiency in French.
