I have been thinking of reading de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, because a lot of descriptions or summarize lend themselves to an anti-democratic critique. If anyone here has read it, is this true?

Also, is Chomsky's Manufactured Consent worth reading. I have reading people describe certain observations (eg 80 percent of the population are totally incapable of free thought, thus undermining much of Mill's fawning over Free Speech Principles in On Liberty. I leafed through an electronic ebook, and it looks dense and somewhat dated, with a lot of turgid discussion about the Vietnam and Gulf Wars. Is there a more concise critique of this Opus available?

I was on a good reading tear this summer, re-reading a lot of favorites that after 10-20 years, did not remember too much about. Examples include Crime and Punishment, Mayor of Casterbridge (as well as Return of the Native, Picture of Dorian Gray, Camus' The Plague. Just finished Brothers Karamazov. I was going at a tear of 100 pages a day, then I read the chapter about Aloysha fretting how is guru's body was decomposing as the instigator for some sort of crisis of faith and for about 100 pages had to really focus on not abandoning it.

Football season is not conducive to reading. My point is both of these texts are voluminous and want to make sure they are worth reading.

Thomas Carlyle's Shooting Niagra was a great attack on Democracy. Some of his prose is inscrutable though (I also re-read Sartor Resartus over the summer, one of my favorites!)