Ancien Regime and the Revolution

€17.90


Shipping in 4/5 days

Product Information

ISBN9780141441641
AuthorsAlexis de Tocqueville
PublisherPenguin Books Ltd
FormatPaperback
Number of pages336
Weight (kg)0.248
Publishing Date29/05/2008
Price (excl. tax)€16.89
Tax€1.01
Price (incl. tax)€17.90
Availability6 units in external warehouse

Product Description

The Ancien Régime and the Revolution is a comparison of revolutionary France and the despotic rule it toppled. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) is an objective observer of both periods – providing a merciless critique of the ancien régime, with its venality, oppression and inequality, yet acknowledging the reforms introduced under Louis XVI, and claiming that the post-Revolution state was in many ways as tyrannical as that of the King; its once lofty and egalitarian ideals corrupted and forgotten. Writing in the 1850s, Tocqueville wished to expose the return to despotism he witnessed in his own time under Napoleon III, by illuminating the grand, but ultimately doomed, call to liberty made by the French people in 1789. His eloquent and instructive study raises questions about liberty, nationalism and justice that remain urgent today.