biography
| name: |
Tocqueville, Alexis (Charles Henri Maurice Clérel) de
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pronunciation:
[tokveel]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1805–59)
|
| biography:
| Historian and political scientist, born in Verneuil, NC France. He became a lawyer (1825), and in 1831 went to the USA to report on the prison system. On his return, he published a penetrating political study, De la Démocratie en Amerique (1835, Democracy in America), which gave him a European reputation. The book is required reading on political science courses in the USA. He became a member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1839, and in 1849 was vice-president of the Assembly and briefly minister of foreign affairs. After Louis Napoleon's coup, he retired to his estate, where he wrote the first volume of L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution (1856, The Old Regime and the Revolution). He died before it could be completed. |
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