The Old Regime and the Revolution, Volume II: Notes on the French Revolution and Napoleon - Hardcover

Tocqueville, Alexis De

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226805336 ISBN 13: 9780226805337

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2001

Synopsis

With his monumental work The Old Regime and the Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)-best known for his classic Democracy in America— envisioned a multivolume philosophic study of the origins of modern France that would examine the implications of French history on the nature and development of democratic society. Volume 1, which covered the eighteenth-century background to the Revolution, was published to great acclaim in 1856. On the continuation of this project, he wrote: "When this Revolution has finished its work, [this volume] will show what that work really was, and what the new society which has come from that violent labor is, what the Revolution has taken away and what it has preserved from that old regime against which it was directed."

Tocqueville died in the midst of this work. Here in volume 2—in clear, up-to-date English—is all that he had completed, including the chapters he started for a work on Napoleon, notes and analyses he made in the course of researching and writing the first volume, and his notes on his preparation for his continuation. Based on the new French edition of The Old Regime, most of the translated texts have never before appeared in English, and many of those that have appeared have been considerable altered. More than ever before, readers will be able to see how Tocqueville's account of the Revolution would have come out, had he lived to finish it. This handsomely produced volume completes the set and is essential reading for anyone interested in the French Revolution or in Tocqueville's thought.

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Review

One is sorely tempted to allow the marvelously lucid prose in Alan S. Kahan's new translation of Alexis de Tocqueville's study of the French Revolution speak for itself: "In 1789 the French made the greatest effort ever undertaken by any people to disassociate themselves from their past, and to put an abyss between what they had been and what they wished to become." But as Tocqueville found out when--with the hindsight of half a century--he examined the historical records, the revolution was really not so radical a turn of events. "True, it took the world by surprise, and yet it was the result of a very long process, the sudden and violent climax of a task to which ten generations had contributed." Thus the first volume of The Old Regime and the Revolution concerns itself with the state of affairs before 1798, getting beyond the "confused and often mistaken notions" of his contemporaries "about the manner in which business was conducted, the real practices of institutions ... the real basis of ideas and mores." Although many historians have taken on the French Revolution in the years since Tocqueville's analysis was first published, few have addressed the subject with as effective a combination of insight and clarity. --Ron Hogan

About the Author

François Furet (1927-1997) was the leading French historian of the Revolution and, according to the New York Times, "one of the most influential French thinkers of the post-war era."

Françoise Mélonio is the editor of Gallimard's critical edition of Tocqueville's complete works.

Alan S. Kahan is an associate professor in the history department at Florida International University and the author of Aristocratic Liberalism.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0226805336
• ISBN 13: 9780226805337
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 512
• Editor: Furet François, Mélonio Françoise