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 · Tocqueville Road Trip: 1. Game of chance · 13 Jun 2026 podcast

I'm going to retrace his steps around the country, talking to Americans from all walks of life, just like he did.

It's an old-fashioned road trip, with stops in New York and Niagara, Michigan and Boston, with a crossing south into Kentucky and a visit to DC at the end.

And it's also a chance for me to take a moment for myself amidst the madness, to clarify what I really think about this land of prodigies, as Tockville put it.

And to answer a pair of questions that have been on my mind as this country approaches its two hundred and fiftieth birthday.

How much of what Tocqueville admired about democracy in America still holds true today?

And how worried should I be feeling about what's been lost?

From The Economist, I'm John Prodeau, and this is my Tocqueville road trip.

Episode one Game of Chance.

I'm in New York's Upper West Side.

The lighting is low, the wood panelling is dark.

There's a menu in a special font, and a counter tenor to entertainers.

Normally when I come to the city for work, I speak to policy wonks or executives in bland meeting rooms.

People do not generally play the lute.

But this time Tocville is my guide.

When he arrived here with Beaumore, word immediately spread about their aristocratic credentials and their lofty mission to understand the new world.

New York's emerging upper class took note.

The two of them received a flurry of invitations to dinners, balls, and soires.

And they began hanging out with Americans who had done very well out of democracy.

Tocville was impressed.

Never have a people been blessed with such happy, dynamic conditions of existence, he wrote to a friend.

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