Alexis de Tocqueville

1805–1859

Nationality: French

Historical Period: The 19th Century

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was an enormously influential French political philosopher, politician, and historian. After a trip to the U.S. in 1831 to observe the penal system he wrote Democracy in America (1835). He served as a member of parliament in the July Monarchy and the 1848 Revolution, writing an important memoir about the events of that upheaval. His last major work was a unfinished history of The Ancien Régime and the Revolution (1856).

See the Liberty Matters online discussion on Tocqueville’s New Science of Politics Revisited

Quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville:

• Alexis de Tocqueville on administrative despotism

Titles from Alexis de Tocqueville:

• Author: L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution (7th ed. 1866)
• Author: BOLL 66: Alexis de Tocqueville, “On Socialism” (1848)
• Author: Correspondence and Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834-1859, 2 vols. (1872)
• Author: Democracy in America. English Edition. 2 vols.
• Author: Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, 4 vols. (LF ed. 2010)
• Author: De la Démocratie en Amérique, 4 vols. (12th ed. 1848)
• Author: Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, 2 vols. (1861)
• Author: The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856)
• Author: The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville (1896)
• Author: Report made to the Chamber of Deputies on the Abolition of Slavery in the French Colonies (1840)