John Prideaux

speaker

643 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 19 Jun

John Prideaux’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.

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The Intelligence from The Economist · Trailer: Tocqueville Road Trip · 19 Jun 2026 podcast

Alexis de Tocqueville is the nearest thing foreign correspondents have to a superhero. matched

He arrived in America on a boat from France in May eighteen thirty one. matched

A young aristocrat on a mission. matched

The US was still a long way off being a superpower back then. matched

It was barely fifty years old. matched

But Tocqueville caught a glimpse of what it could become. matched

A new kind of society that would give the world a spectacle for which history had not prepared it. matched

A land with no kings or queens, where citizens made the rules. matched

And so he set off on a nine-month road trip to figure out how it worked. matched

He spoke to Americans from all walks of life. matched

He filled up 14 notebooks and dozens of letters with his observations. matched

Then he returned to France and wrote a book called Democracy in America. matched

For my money, it's still the single most insightful thing ever written about the United States. matched

I'm John Prideau, the US editor for The Economist. matched

That book has been my companion since I first arrived in Washington as a correspondent thirteen years ago. matched

Togville's big insight was that America was much more than a country, it was an idea, one with the power to inspire followers and converts all over the planet, almost like a religion does. matched

But now, two centuries after Tocqueville, more and more people are questioning their faith in the United States, and its right to lead the world. matched

To make sense of this change, I'm returning to Tocqueville to try to see this America through his eyes. matched

For a new podcast series, I'm going on my own road trip. matched

Following the route Tocville took. matched

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