All come to look for America

American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville
By Bernard-Henri Lévy
Translated, from the French, by Charlotte Mandell
Random House, 308 pp., $24.95

Alexis de Tocqueville, French aristocrat, social reformer, and political theorist, was born two centuries ago, in 1805, and toured much of the United States in 1831-32 before writing his brilliant classic, ''Democracy in America" (two volumes, 1835-40). Quite suitably the Atlantic Monthly commissioned Bernard-Henri Lévy, the leading French philosopher and cultural critic, to make a comparable journey in 2004-2005 and record his observations on the contemporary scene, ranging from American mores (Tocqueville's elusive word was ''moeurs," which blends manners with morals) to politics. Like Tocqueville, Lévy had carefully arranged access to numerous persons of consequence, and Levy even attended the nation's two nominating conventions in 2004. He also conversed with many ordinary citizens, ranging from prostitutes and lap dancers to Pentecostal Christians.