Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was born into a Norman aristocratic family that had narrowly survived the Terror of the French Revolution—several relatives were guillotined, and his parents were imprisoned. He studied law in Paris and at twenty-five secured a commission with his friend Gustave de Beaumont to study the American penal system, a pretext for the nine-month journey across the United States that would produce his masterwork. The first volume of Democracy in America, published in 1835, made him famous throughout Europe at the age of thirty. This author hub collects 1 work in the Canon Compass ranking, led by Democracy in America.