Recollections

"This entirely new translation of Tocqueville's 'Souvenirs'--his posthumously published, extraordinarily lucid and trenchant analysis of the 1848 revolution in France--will be the definitive English edition of the work for decades to come. Tocqueville's most polished literary text, full of bravura passages and stylistic flourishes, it was never intended for publication. Written immediately after the climax of Tocqueville's political career and just before Louis Bonaparte's 1851 coup prompted the great theorist of democracy to retire from political life, it is an exercise in candid personal reflection. Yielding to pressure from friends, Tocqueville approved its publication, but only after all characters portrayed in it--mostly unflatteringly--had died. In 1893, more than three decades after Tocqueville's death, his nephew published an expurgated version. Only in 1964 did French editors restore the potentially offensive passages. A selection of speeches, occasional texts, notes, and letters add significantly to our understanding of the revolutionary period and Tocqueville's role in it. His letters range from personal concerns to all the important political issues of the day. They illuminate not only the French conflict but the powerful reaction taking hold in Germany and Italy. They also document Tocqueville's only serious intellectual encounter with socialism and its theoreticians (Cabet, Proudhon, and Fourier, but not Marx). Finally, the edition evinces the continuing influence the United States on Tocqueville, who tirelessly, albeit futilely, promoted the American model of government for the new French Republic"--Provided by publisher.