Introduction
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was a thinker pulled between several worlds. He was an aristocrat by both birth and temperament, but he never lived in an aristocratic society, and his crowning achievement was to compose the most celebrated study of democracy ever written. He was awestruck by the equality found in democratic societies, but he also prized freedom and was fearful that democracy would enable new forms of despotism. Tocqueville was also torn over the conflicting demands of intellectual and political life. Although he savored the tranquility of scholarship and writing, he also threw himself into politics, serving as deputy under the July Monarchy, vice president of the Assemblée Nationaleafter the revolution of 1848, and even briefly as France’s minister of foreign affairs. Finally, Tocqueville found himself divided between his detestation of violent tyranny and his support for French colonization as a project of national salvation. In his capacity as a...
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Notes
- 1.
All in-text references to Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (DA) contain the volume, part, and chapter numbers. All in-text references to Tocqueville’s Ancien Régime and the Revolution (AR) contain the book and chapter numbers. The editions cited are listed in the references at the end of this entry.
References
Primary Sources
de Tocqueville A (1969) Democracy in America (trans: Lawrence G). Edited by Mayer JP. Perennial Classics, New York
de Tocqueville A (2008) Ancien regime and the revolution (trans: Bevan G). Introduction by Brogan H. Penguin, London
Secondary Sources
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Carroll, R. (2020). Tocqueville, Alexis de. In: Sellers, M., Kirste, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_462-1
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