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Alexis de Tocqueville: A Biography
Contemporary Review, Winter, 2007
Alexis de Tocqueville: A Biography. Hugh Brogan. Profile Books. [pounds sterling]30.00. 724 pages. ISBN 978-1-86197-509-6. Tocqueville has long been one of the most quoted writers on serious political topics. This intellectual French aristocrat from 'the middle rank of the Norman noblesse' remains the foremost analyst of American democracy.
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His famous book has, as Hugh Brogan admits, many flaws: it lacks any detailed consideration of the electoral process. But for Tocqueville, Democratie en Amerique was really 'the substance of a critique of French politics'. All his life Tocqueville, royalist turned republican, struggled to adapt himself to what he saw as the coming age of democracy, but his own political career in France was a failure. Prof. Brogan has been working on this magisterial biography for more than 35 years. It is a large work, almost 200 pages larger than Andre Jardin's biography in the 1980s. This biography, unlike Jardin's, is directed towards the English-speaking world and it will certainly be the definitive work for many decades. The book, although thoroughly based on extensive research, is a lively and well written study of a troubled soul. Hugh Brogan provides far more information about the background and influence of Tocqueville's English-born wife as well as the Viscount's final reconciliation with the Catholic Church. Mr Brogan's discussion of Tocqueville's other book, the Ancien Regime, adds much to our understanding not only of that important work but of the French Revolution itself. Through this excellent biography the reader will learn much about the turbulent world of nineteenth century France and will be helped in understanding Tocqueville's Democracy in America. (R.F.M.)
COPYRIGHT 2007 Contemporary Review Company Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
