Jon Elster . Alexis de Tocqueville, the First Social Scientist . New York : Cambridge University Press . 2009 . Pp. x, 202. $22.99. Paul A. Rahe . Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville and the Modern Prospect . New Haven : Yale University Press . 2009 . Pp. xxiii, 374. $38.00.