Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Joseph Epstein has written a very useful brief (205 pages) biography of Alexis de Tocqueville, author of "Democracy in America" (1835). This is one of two new Tocqueville biographies--the other being the long-germinating volume by Denis Brogan. The author strikes a very nice balance between covering Tocqueville's life, while also devoting some attention to his major writings. So while there is a discussion of "Democracy in America" it is not as extensive as if the book were a commentary on it alone. Other Tocqueville writing efforts, especially his book on the causes of the French revolution and uncompleted second volume on the actual revolution itself, are discussed as well. But basically, the book is a fast paced review of Tocqueville's life, political career, and relationship to various French governments (including his service for a brief time as foreign minister). Several times the author touches upon Tocqueville's central dilemma--the relationship between democracy, liberty and equality. The discussion of Tocqueville as an aristocrat commenting on democracy and equality is quite interesting. The book has no notes, bibliograpy or index--but does have a brief note at the end regarding the most valuable sources the author found on the topic. The author's writing style is quite pleasant and enjoyable. Quite a lot of info packed into a relatively short book--enough of a taste to let the reader know whether it is worthwhile to invest in one of the longer treatments of Tocqueville's life.

The editors of the Eminent Lives series chose well when they selected Joseph Epstein to write this brief biography of Alexis de Tocqueville. His research and writings about Envy, Snobbery and Friendship have served him in his task of "getting at the quality of mind" of his subject. Tocqueville was an ideal friend, loyal, generous and abiding. Born an aristocrat at the beginning of the inexorable advance of equality, he knew about envy and snobbery from both sides of the fence. While Equality was the "idee mere" from his observations of democracy in America and the revolution in France, his sympathies favored Liberty although he recognized the dynamic tension and irreconcilability between them. He wrote that democracy and equality discourage both brilliance and great crimes while fostering mediocrity and comfort. Liberty allows the means to excel but few benefit and many suffer. A spectrum of political opinions find confirmation in his books. Epstein projects a clean, sharp picture of the man and his ideas. Informed by Tocqueville's works and other biographies, this is not a digest but a distillation enlivened by Epsteinian wit.

Tocqueville has fame. He is more often quoted than read. Tocqueville sought to analyze all social arrangements. He was born in 1805 in Paris. Alexis's father's hair turned white in the Terror. His mother never regained her emotional equilibrium after being imprisoned. The family atmosphere was filled with talk of books and ideas. Alexis became a philosophical historian. As a young man Alexis was seized with doubt upon reading Buffon and Voltaire. As a juge auditeur Alexis formed a life-long friendship with Gustave de Beaumont. Alexis gave allegiance to Louis-Philippe but withdrew from government service to travel with Beaumont in North America. The two came up with the idea to study American penal systems. The book resulting from the journey, DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, was a classic in political science and political philosophy.

When Tocqueville faced his notes on American politics he had writer's block. Beaumont wrote the report on prisons. To create comparisons, Tocqueville traveled to England. He discovered that in England governmental functions were decentralized. The aristocracy was less unitary than the French aristocracy. Tocqueville spent a little less than s year on the first volume of DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. It was published in 1835 and was a smashing success. Tocqueville's ambition crippled his haoppiness. He became a member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1839. Tocqueville had trouble talking to voters, he had little vocation for politics. Tocqueville wrote Volume Two of DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. He feared a loss of liberty. He thought equality a danger. The second part was published in 1840. It was not as successful as the first.

Epstein's work is an intellectual portrait of Tocqueville. He has read DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA three times. Tocqueville predicted the abolition of slavery amnd the swings in business cycles. He knew that revolutions occur when despotic governments ease their hold on the populace. Tocqueville predicted the French revolution of 1848. He recounted the events in his RECOLLECTIONS. The revolution was brought to life by a mob. The work is filled with brilliant prose portraits Epstein asserts.

Tocqueville served for five months in the foreign ministry until the advent of Louis-Napoleon's coup d'etat in 1851. Directly afterward Tocqueville began his book THE OLD REGIME AND THE REVOLUTION. Tocqueville's forte was analysis, not narrative. The philosophes brought literature into politics. They staked all on reason and attacked religion. When Tocqueville died in 1859 he had religious doubts. This is a satisfactory addition to the Eminent Lives series. The writing is concise. The book is compact.

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. 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.

I have spent quite a bit of time reading Tocqueville. It truly is one of the seminal works for understanding America. Epstein does a brilliant job in this short, but satisfying biography.

'Democracy in America' was a smash hit in France when first published in 1835, an expression of their intense desire to create a democratic society based on the example of Americans.

Americans still love the Tocqueville idea; it is the strongest proof by a European aristocrat that "democracy" was invented in America. Epstein writes, "Americans didn't have a history to rewrite. Setting out very nearly as a tabula rasa, they charged themselves not with changing an existing society so much as with making an entirely new one."

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the ultimate 'Do-It-Yourself' guide to freedom, a superb portrait of Americans, their quirks, habits, ideas and attitudes. These are also basic English qualities. In America, far from the daily rule of lords, ladies and other layabouts, this natural decency and innate distrust of authority blossomed into an unparalleled freedom.

Epstein understands Tocqueville wrote an astute portrait of how Americans use democracy. But, it didn't inspire the French to copy and improve upon the American precedent. Tocqueville rejected Montesquieu's idea "that forms of government engender modes of behaviour (monarchy, honour; aristocracy, moderation; republicanism, virtue; despotism, terror). Tocqueville showed that things often work the other way around, with modes of behaviour just as likely to engender forms of government."

In other words, the naturally rebellious English flourished in America and created a decentralized government with constitutionally limited powers (see Amendment X to the US Constitution). American democracy is due to evolution, not immaculate conception. It is still evolving and improving, as seen in the change from Dred Scott to Brown vs. Board of Education.

These books, both Tocqueville and Epstein, are a valuable balance to 'Vice' by Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein which describes how Vice President Dick Cheney schemed to give the presidency unimpeded power to conduct foreign affairs and declare war on their own whims and falsehoods. Epstein cites Tocqueville's strong opposition to centralized authority that has been a feature of France for at least 1,000 years and is now an obsession of the Bush administration.

Anyone who wants to understand democray in America should read this brief but astute insight into the mind, character and nature of Tocqueville. The nature of the imperial presidency changes, from respect for democracy to worship of power. As Epstein shows so clearly, it is the basic decency of Americans that keeps their democracy alive, well and growing. Democracy is what people make it and what they are comfortable in living with; it is not a gift of government or any other paternalist.

Like a great guidebook to a city or country, Epstein has written a great guide to the genius who came, saw and understood the exceptional nature of Americans. In these times, it is an invaluable resource to understand the current debate between a president who thinks "I'm the decider" and the rights of Americans to make the vital decisions about their lives, well-being and destiny.

I had purchased the book from another source for 4.95 and I am glad to admit I had not paid full price. Further, I will return the book upon completion.

My major issue with this overview is that in no case does the author cite his sources - a very poor fact indeed of writing of a man who has no defense of himself other than which he had wrote himself. To be clear, the author has placed Tocqueville very near to a progressive and socialist. When one reads the words which have been written (authored) by the subject of the book himself, one clearly understand that:

1. Tocqueville believes in the ideals of America as it was intended not that they should be anything other than that of the intention;
2. Tocqueville indeed believes that there is a God and that while we all struggle with the issues of a Divine being, those that do believe after the struggle, come to the conclusion that our perception of that same Perfection is imperfect. Tocqueville does in fact overcome this difficulty which the author falis to admit or discuss with any degree at all;
3. Tocqueville did struggle with the fact of the natural laws concerning the poor and the rich - again the author would have you believe that he opposes discrepancy in the wealthy being well to do and that there should not be a class that should exist. A reading of Tocqueville writings will clear the doubt cast by the author, who would rather have you believe the opposite. Moreover Toqueville believed that the American system was the best system to deal with and help the poor. On a personal note, it is a shame we have let Toqueville down as a Nation.

Read at your own risk.

All of this in the FIRST chapter and a half.