History 499 

Revolution and Modernity in the Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville 

Description 

But Tocqueville was also a political actor in his own right, a crucial dimension to his life and thought that even some of his most devoted students have neglected. He was no detached intellectual. Rather, , he was a participant in the very things of which he wrote. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies at the age of thirty-three, where he served for the duration of the July Monarchy, elected to the Constituent Assembly of the Second Republic, chosen to help draft the constitution for the Second Republic, elected to the General Assembly, and then appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by Louis Napoleon. To all these tasks Tocqueville brought an admirable combination of broad historical vision and personal incorruptibility, for he viewed public service as a sacred obligation. His life provides us with a valuable point of departure for thinking about the public responsibility of intellectuals, and the public uses of history. 

Our task in this course is to try to see Tocqueville whole: to discern how the disparate expressions of his formidable energies add up to a consistent view of the world, and of the various possibilities of human character and society. Tocqueville had the extraordinary fortune (or fate) of living his life perched upon a cresting wave of history , a condition which left him with a keen sense of the difference between the old social order that was passing away, and the modern social order corning into being---and a keen sense of the respective strengths and weaknesses of each way of life. In the three major works we shall be reading, we shall see Tocqueville approach his subject in three distinct ways, adopting distinct roles and voices: as outsider and foreign observer (the Democracy ), as insider and participant-observer ( Recollections ), and as magisterial historian ( The Old Regime and the French Revolution ). And in the selected letters, we catch glimpses ofTocqueville himself from the inside, as it were, and begin to see how the many strands of his work came to intersect in the life and mind of this singular man. 

Required Texts 

Tocqueville, Democracy in America , Volumes 1 and 2 (Vintage). 

--------------, The Old Regime and the French Revolution (Doubleday Anchor). 

--------------, Recollections: The French Revolution of 1848 (Transaction). 

Papers, Examinations, Grades 

In addition, all students will be required to write and turn in four short papers (about 3-5 pages) during the first nine weeks of the course (from January 13 until March 9, the Thursday before spring vacation). These papers will concern themselves with the reading materials assigned for the day on which they are turned in, and will be used, at the instructor’s discretion, to introduce the discussion for that day. Students will sign up for their four dates in advance, so that we can achieve a relatively even classwide distribution of paper assignments. I’ll talk more about the specific requirements of these papers in our first class meeting, but for now, suffice it to say that you will have a good deal of freedom to explore any of the issues Tocqueville raises in the assigned reading, and will not be required to write a comprehensive “book report”-style essay. I’m much more interested in using these papers as vehicles for reflection and as springboards for further discussion. 

Then, after spring vacation, you will have the option of writing either two more short papers, or one larger one (10-25 pages in length). 

As for your final grade, it will be based, very roughly, half on your papers and half on your participation in class discussions. I say "very roughly" because I do not use such a formula in a rigid way, and I reserve the right to weigh one or another factor more heavily, if doing so seems to me to provide a more accurate reflection of the overall quality of an individual student's work. 

Reading Schedule 

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