Tocqueville, not merely because of the beauty of his prose and the bril-
liance of his answers but also by the intricacy and subtlety of his reasoning.
Hancock’s scope is narrower and his methods are weaker. But, even so,
Hancock’s work is still dazzling, both in its form and in its content; and the
mere fact that so many of its phrases and images have become integral to
the rhetoric of Australian political debate highlights its continuing
relevance.
The differing fate ofDemocracy in Americaon the one hand, andAustraliaon
the other, therefore invites explanation. Obviously, that explanation must be
informed by the works themselves; but a book’s reception also depends on its
broader context, and especially so for books immersed in the fundamental
debates about a country’s past and future. Comparing these works and explor-
ing their fates is the goal of this chapter. Its aim is twofold: to explore and
clarify the relationship between these canonical works, taking account of the
fact that Hancock was greatly influenced by Tocqueville; and, on that basis, to
examine some of the factors that might account for their contrasting fortunes.
Having considered a range of such factors, it suggests that two are especially
important. Thefirst is that, unlike the United States, Australia lacks a founda-
tion myth that shapes political culture and political controversy. As a result,
works that go to the origins and nature of the‘Australian Settlement’are less
likely to be used as points of reference in the public debate, with that being all
the more the case as immigration ensures so large a share of the population
has little connection to, and knowledge of, the Australian past.
Second, even to the extent to which historical references do play a role,
Hancock’sAustralia—with its strong critique of the‘Australian Settlement’,
and of the priority given to the pursuit of‘fairness’—will not sit easily with the
mood of the present times. Rather, the dominant tendency is to rehabilitate
that‘settlement’and, with it, at least some elements of the radical-nationalist
view of Australian history. In contrast, in the United States, the intellectual
debate between left and right is far more evenly matched, withDemocracy in
Americaserving as an authority on which both sides may draw.
5.1 Lives and Settings
In consideringDemocracy in AmericaandAustralia, it is useful to start by
considering the seemingly very different backgrounds of the authors. After
all, while Hancock was the grandson of a brick-maker and the son of a country
clergyman, Tocqueville was an aristocrat, who counted as a great-grandparent
Malesherbes, the great and liberal-minded administrator who, having acted as
counsel for the defence of Louis XVI, was guillotined in 1794; and, as a cousin
by marriage, Chateaubriand, one of thefirst andfinest writers of French
Henry Ergas