Alexis de Tocqueville
1805 – 1859
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).
Show more
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 also our collection of extracts, essays, and other resources on Tocqueville.
See the Liberty Matters online discussion on Tocqueville’s New Science of Politics Revisited
Tocqueville featured as the July 2023 OLL Birthday. Read it here
