Tocqueville
Contemporary philosophyTocqueville was a 19th-century French philosopher (1805-1859). Born into a family of Norman nobility, he obtained a law degree and was appointed judge auditor at the court of Versailles. He left for the United States to study the American prison system. On his return, he became a lawyer and published Democracy in America, which enjoyed considerable success. He was elected Member of Parliament, then General Councillor for La Manche, and finally Minister of Foreign Affairs. Hostile to Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, he was arrested and then left political life.
Tocqueville's works summarised on this site
Democracy in America
In this work, Tocqueville shares the political reflections suggested to him by his trip to America. He compares France and America, but also democracy and the Ancien Régime
Bibliography
Here are the essential books if you wish to gain a better understanding of this author's thought:
Mansfield, Harvey C. Tocqueville: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Mitchell, Joshua. The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Wolin, Sheldon. Tocqueville Between Two Worlds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Schleifer, James T. The Chicago Companion to Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012
Welch, Cheryl. The Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville. Cambridge, Eng., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006
Recommended videos
Conferences, symposia, radio broadcasts... here are 6 videos that will help you better understand Tocqueville's thought.
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Biography: life of Tocqueville
Youth
Alexis de Tocqueville was born in 1805 in Paris, into a family from the Norman nobility. His parents, supporters of the monarchy, had family links with Malesherbes, Louis XVI's lawyer. They were arrested by the revolutionary government and narrowly avoided the guillotine. It was not until the fall of Robespierre in 1794 that they were saved. They then went into exile.
They returned to France only when Napoleon took power, and Henri de Tocqueville, the philosopher’s father, became a peer of France and a prefect..
Tocqueville studied at the Jesuit college in Metz, where he learned philosophy and rhetoric. He then went to Paris, obtained a law degree, and was appointed as an auditing judge at a court in Versailles.
This was the period of the July Monarchy: power did not revert to the Bourbons, but to the younger branch, the House of Orléans. As a judge, Alexis de Tocqueville agreed to swear allegiance to the new government, causing tensions with his family, who remained loyal to the Bourbons.
Travel and writing
In 1831, he was sent on a mission to the United States to study the American penitentiary system.
The new government, that of the July Monarchy, thought it could indeed draw useful lessons from observing what was being practised in this area in other countries.
He stayed in the United States for nine months. Upon his return, he became a lawyer. He had a decisive meeting with the Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, who was visiting France and provided him with extensive information about the laws, demographics, and economy of the United States.
His trip and discussions provided sufficient material for the development of his main work, Democracy in America. In 1835, he published the first volume, which met with great success.
After a trip to England, where he met John Stuart Mill, he was made a knight of the Legion of Honour, and elected to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. After the publication of the second volume, in 1840, he was appointed to the Académie française.
Politics
He then became involved in politics and was elected as the deputy for Manche, a position he held for ten years, until 1851.
Alexis was not, unlike his family, an ultra-royalist. As a liberal, he accepted the principles of the Revolution while condemning its excesses, unlike the supporters of the Restoration.
He wrote three important reports on the abolition of slavery, prison reform, and the colonisation of Algeria, which had just begun. He prophesied a new revolution to come, which was sure to happen less than a year later, to everyone's surprise, in 1848.
He was elected general councillor of the Manche department from 1842 to 1852, then president of the general council of that department, from 1849 to 1851.
After the 1848 Revolution, Tocqueville took part in the Constituent Assembly, and in the drafting of the new Constitution. Committed to the conservative camp, he approved the repression of the June Days.
He became vice-president of the Legislative Assembly in 1849, then Napoleon III's Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, he opposed the coup d'état organised by Napoleon III at the end of his presidential term. He was then briefly imprisoned, before retiring from political affairs.
He then began writing a new work, The Old Regime and the Revolution. Only the first volume was completed.
Stricken by tuberculosis, Tocqueville died in Cannes in 1859.
Main works
Democracy in America
The Old Regime and the Revolution