Samenvatting

The books by the French writer Alexis Tocqueville attracted great interest, also in the Netherlands, including Groen van Prinsterer and his friends. Groen frequently quotes from it, often with approval – for example about the vulnerability of democracy –, sometimes with critical commentary – about democracy as the fruit of revolutionary concepts, for example. This article contains the result of an investigation into intercourse of Groen with the works of Tocqueville. This research was carried out as part of the Tocqueville project of Prof. Sophie van Bijsterveld, professor of Law, Religion and Society at Radboud University in Nijmegen (https://www.ru.nl/tocqueville/).