Customer Reviews

Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life

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

 

 

A detailed overview of the life of a remarkable observer of the human/political condition in both France and America. The British professor, Hugh Brogran, has spent a good deal of his long academic career studying Tocqueville. His close attention and careful work in the archives bears abundant fruit in this biography.

Not for most casual readers, but very rewarding for those with an interest in democracy in the early United States, French politics after Napoleon, and of the social/literary life of a liberal noble in the decades after the fall of the Ancient Regime. But above all, a book for Brian Lamb of C-SPAN.

This very enjoyable book is an excellent study of the very interesting French writer and politician Alexis de Tocqueville. Known best for his analysis of contemporary America, de Tocqueville is a notable figure in the history of political thought and a key source for the history of 19th century America. Brogan's Tocqueville is an essentially conservative figure. The descendent of relatively liberal aristocrats under the Ancien Regime, a number of whom were executed during the Terror, Tocqueville grew up in a legitimist household that detested the Bonapartist state and feared the radicalism that led to the Terror. Tocqueville, however, was too intelligent and preceptive to be a dogmatic Throne and Altar conservative. Following his famous trip to the USA in the early 1830s, he published Democracy in America, a case study in how a liberal society dedicated to political equality, property rights, and respect for law could produce lasting stability. Brogan points out well that Democracy in America, while about American democracy, was inspired by concerns about the role of democracy in France. At the same time, while Democracy affirmed a liberal vision, Brogan is careful to point out that it was a somewhat conservative version of liberalism and that Tocqueville did not really understand important aspects of American democracy. He didn't really understand the role of Congress and appears to have been completely clueless about the crucial role of the party system in providing stability.
Tocqueville's failure to understand crucial aspects of the American democratic system would prove to be hindrance in Tocqueville's political career. Brogan devotes much of the book to a thoughtful description of Tocqueville the politician. More than anything else, his political career shows his essential conservatism. At times, his fear of unrest led him to support distinctly illiberal policies. Like many of his contemporaries, Tocqueville doesn't seem to understand the changes being brought about by the industrialization of Europe and to his last days, he had a fear of urban unrest and the nascent working class.
Brogan shows very well that his last great work, the very interesting Ancien Regime and the French Revolution, should be interpreted in good measure as a critique of the Second Empire. Tocqueville's contemporary preoccupations clearly influenced the themes of his last major work.
Tocqueville is often compared with Montesquieu and this is quite apt. Its clear from Brogan's account that Tocqueville's version of liberalism and democracy was one in the tradition of classical 18th century republicanism. He would definitely have preferred a society with democratic elements but also with institutions that allowed a powerful voice for a principled elite. This vision, shared by people like John Adams and even James Madison in his early constitutional proposals, essentially evaporated in the early years of the American democracy. Tocqueville was pursuing something that had really become anachronistic in his own time.
Brogan writes affectionately but objectively about Tocqueville. This book is written very well with a nice combination of the primary narrative and enough background information to be informative but not over power the narrative.

He seems the unlikeliest person to write an incisive study of American democracy: a rather spoiled son of a French aristocrat of the ancien regime, and one who suffered from a sense of futility in his own life. But the amazing truth is the Alexis de Tocqueville was exactly the best qualified man to do exactly that. Scholarly, intelligent, a precise writer, de Tocqueville was the one to write an immortal study of American life that would become in time a classic. Best of all, he wrote his work not in his study, but after an intense journey through America itself in the early 1830s.
Hugh Brogan's biography is an excellent study of this young author, and probably the very best modern biography. He uses de Tocquevilles' letters and other contemporary writings to illuminate the life and thought of the young aristocrat. And aristocrat he was, his father having stoutly stood by the French crown through its many vicissitudes (and nearly executed by the Jacobins for this). Young Alexis himself clung to the aristocracy until the turbulent days of the July Monarchy, when the Bourbons were unseated by the Orleanists. After this, the young writer lost much of his loyalty to the crown.
Brogan's book is well written, and covers the political scene in France during de Tocqueville's time quite thoroughly. It is simply a book not to be missed about the world of this very talented young man, who proved to be so influential in studies about America and democracy in general.

Every line is almost poetic in this beautifully written biography of de Tocqueville. Gorgeous imagery and flowing language--Alexis comes to life as though he lived only 10 years ago rather than many decades ago! Wonderful book!!

Has slightly uneven feel, gripping and vivid in parts, cool and remote in others, but that reflects the different epochs in De Tocqueville's life and the variations in his thought.

I'd advise reading De T's "Democracy in America" first (if only in one of abridged editions) then Brogan. Then what Brogan writes, which is highly informed, fluent and above all insightful will really be appreciated.

Brogan is one of the leading English-language contemporary historians of 19C America and one of the best historical writers too. 4 stars "taken neat", but if you cross-reference with De T himself probably 5.

I read "Democracy in America" when I was in college and wrote a paper looking at how the issues Tocqueville discussed in the 1830s played out in 1980s America. My conclusion was that many of his insights still had amazing relevance and yet his over-arching analysis of how America functioned as a democracy was pretty weak. He didn't understand the Presidency and Congress and completely neglected the role of political parties. However, his thoughts about American character; the striving for material success, the triumph of mediocrity, our refreshing practicality, the tyranny of majority and most amazingly how America and Russia would one day become polar opposite but competing superpowers were still all wonderfully relevant to modern American life.

Hugh Brogan's book similarly points out the strength and weaknesses of Tocqueville's work so I feel vindicated in my youthful analysis. As a biographer, he is terrific. He has studied Tocqueville for much of his 40 years as a historian but waited to complete this work until he could access much of the Tocqueville archives that had been off-limits until recently. I felt he got inside Tocqueville, revealing his character, his times and feelings with amazing power. He also gave a sense of his many close relationships. I knew how he felt towards his tutor, his parents, best friends and wife. Sadly, he also gives a harrowing description of Tocqueville's last years of illness and the man's relationship to his sickness which was both complex and naive.

I thought he was less successful in helping me understand Tocqueville's intellectual process. He talks about him being insightful but doesn't detail how those insights came about. I also think he could have put Tocqueville's work into intellectual historical context; how did he compare to other great thinkers of his era? What accounts for his ongoing influence when many others have faded away, have become important as indicative of their age or how they changed the way people thought about issues but aren't worth consulting for how we should think about our world today. That quality is what make Tocqueville so special.

I have one other quibble. There is no discussion of why he and his wife didn't have children. Was it because of infertility? Choice? How did they feel about this? I have to believe that during this period and in the aristocratic class, not having children would be a big deal.

Hugh Brogan brings to light on of the most careful and subtle minds ever to ponder the origin and meanings of democracy in American history, the fall of the Ancien Regime, and the the basis for much of what passes for modern political thought.

The sections on AT's visit to America are cool and informative. The rest of the book however is a slog. Couldn't pick it up after he returned to Europe.