The Connected Sociologies Podcast
Education
Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clérel, Comte de Tocqueville was born in 1805 into the French nobility and a family estate in Normandy. He died in 1859. His wider family was part of the conservative reaction to the changes brought about by the French Revolution in 1789, but Tocqueville, himself, looked forward. He participated in public office, initially as a magistrate and subsequently as a deputy of the Constituent Assembly, rising briefly to Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1849. He travelled to the United States between May 1831and February 1832 with his friend Gustave Beaumont, ostensibly to study penal institutions, but instead published a two-volume study of Democracy in America. Throughout his life, he commented on contemporary politics and public affairs, including France’s occupation of Algeria. The politics of the period were frequently in turmoil and this instability was a motivating concern of Tocqueville in his search for the conditions of a more stable order.
ReadingResources
Bhambra, Gurminder K. 2021. ‘The Haitian Revolution’ Connected Sociologies Curriculum Project video lecture.
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