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Alexis de Tocqueville, Democrat in America, Colonizer in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Simone Fattal
Simone Fattal*
Affiliation:
Paris
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Extract

Alexis de Tocqueville was born an aristocrat, in the very conservative region of Normandy, in France in 1805. He was at the same time an admirer of the French Revolution, although due to his upbringing and family, he was unable to subscribe to all the principles inherent to that revolution. Tocqueville remains admirable on that score, as he lived under the counterrevolution and participated in the government of the new monarchy. His contradictions made him an observing outsider. He studied law and went into politics. He accompanied his friend, Gustave de Beaumont, who was sent by his government to the New Republic of America, to study the U.S. prison system for its eventual application in France. They cosigned the subsequent report.

Type
Special Section: Tocqueville in Algeria Revisited
Information
Review of Middle East Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , Summer 2011 , pp. 37 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America 2011

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References

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