"Diary of a Madman," a short story by Nikolai Gogol, documents the warping of thought in an impoverished civil servant. The diary's author is incurably insecure and envious; his entries reveal his deepening delusions. This work, written in 1835, attacks Russia's class structure. I did not enjoy this read. Most of the Russian literature I have read dealt with these themes in some way but with better jokes.
In 1831, the French government sent Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont to study the American prison system and American society in general to inform political developments in France. Tocqueville saw virtue in an aristocracy and was skeptical of the egalitarianism preached in the United States.
Tocqueville published his findings, De La Démocratie en Amérique, in two parts (1835 and 1840). His commentary, translated today as Democracy in America, is a staggering read. It is at least as insightful as any other wide-scope religious, political, and economic study of American culture (which are all prone to hasty generalizations) produced before or since. Given the fact that Tocqueville spent only nine months in the United States, this is an especially remarkable achievement.
