Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy's Guide (Eminent Lives)

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OneMansView, March 22, 2010 (view all comments by OneMansView)
Nice overview of a most unique individual (3.5*s)

This short work is not so much of an attempt to chronicle de Tocqueville’s life and works, as it is an attempt to understand his mind, character, and personality. How can it be that this obscure, aristocratic Frenchmen, in his late twenties, could produce perhaps the most insightful book ever written on democracy and without doubt the most read and quoted? Born in 1805 during Napoleon’s reign, the French Revolution and its connection to aristocracy, democracy, monarchy, and dictatorship was, according to the author, the most significant event in de Tocqueville’s life. Beyond the family nightmare of his parents being only days away from being guillotined, the Revolution reverberated throughout French society for decades. De Tocqueville, given his fixation on fundamental ideas, sought to understand for himself and his fellow Frenchmen what underlay the social and political developments of his time, including the experiment in democracy in the US that so fascinated Europeans.

As the author notes, de Tocqueville has resisted definitive classification through the years in terms of his profession, his political leanings, and his ranking as a profound philosopher. The biggest debate concerns his being a conservative or a liberal. The contention that he was a Christian conservative is countered by the crisis in religious belief that he underwent in his late teens that affected him the rest of his life and the fact that he was no lover of monarchy or aristocracy, seeing the spread of equality and democracy, not without their own shortcomings, as inevitable. Perhaps de Tocqueville was not of the intellectual stature of a Marx or Stuart Mill, but he was a keen observer and organizer of political and social phenomena, able to offer profound, often prophetic, insights concerning their bases.

Curiously, de Tocqueville longed to be a politician and was finally elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1840, where he served for eight years with little impact. But he was not socially adept; he was a poor speaker and was unwilling to join political coalitions. Furthermore, he was an intellectual elitist, preferring to remain aloof from the less high-minded. It is interesting that he maintained close friendships with several men during his entire lifetime, including his collaborator in his journey to America, Gustave de Beaumont. His other foray into politics was a short term as the minister of foreign affairs in 1849 under the regime of Louis-Napoleon, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, before the dissolving of the Chamber and the complete seizure of governmental powers.

There is no doubt that de Tocqueville was a most complex individual. His ambition is in little doubt as he made every effort to produce a stylish DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA that did make his reputation, although the benefits were largely personal, not material. He was a profoundly pessimistic man, perhaps bordering on clinical depression. His political insights were more troubling to him than liberating. He did have other real worries, as he was rather sickly over a good bit of his life and died at the age of fifty-three of tuberculosis. His premature death prevented him from completing his comprehensive study of the French Revolution, THE OLD REGIME AND THE REVOLUTION.

This book is a nice overview of Tocqueville, focusing on his broad intellectual inclinations and pointing to his uniqueness. It provides at best a cursory look at his ideas, with the frequent repetition of his concerns about the rise of equality and the average man in political society, at the costs of limiting liberty and settling for widespread mediocrity. The book is very readable, but there is an absence of a table of contents, index, or notes. The bibliography is very limited. Hugh Brogan’s biography remains the fullest treatment of de Tocqueville.

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Product Details

ISBN:

9780061768880

Author:

Epstein, Joseph

Publisher:

Harper Perennial

Subject:

Historical - General

Subject:

Europe - France

Subject:

General Biography

Subject:

Biography-Historical

Copyright:

2009

Edition Description:

Trade PB

Series:

Eminent Lives

Publication Date:

20091131

Binding:

TRADE PAPER

Grade Level:

General/trade

Language:

English

Pages:

224

Dimensions:

7.90x5.20x.60 in. .40 lbs.