This two-volume set presents the results of conversations with scores of Americans, and the close observation of the operation of American political institutions, including political parties and municipal and state governments. It is based on the updated third edition of 1941.

In "Democracy in America" (1835), the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville viewed the fledgling United States through the lens of political theory. A half-century later, the Englishman James Bryce recorded, not what he thought about democracy or America, but "the institutions and the people of America as they are." This work was first published in three volumes in 1888. This two-volume edition is based on the updated third edition of 1941, which encompassed all the changes, corrections and additions that Bryce entered into the previous three editions. Its expanded appendix includes Bryce's 1887 essay, "The Predictions of Hamilton and De Tocqueville", and contemporaneous (1889) reviews of "The American Commonwealth" by Woodrow Wilson and Lord Acton. Bryce presents the results of conversations with scores of Americans, and the close observation of the operation of American political institutions, including political parties and municipal and state governments.