Tocqueville, Alexis de (1805-1859)

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was a French intellectual and politician, who has been variously considered as historian, sociologist, and political theorist. His most well-known work is Democracy in America (1835–1840), a classic study not only of democracy in America but of democracy itself. Sociologists have found in this analysis of the early years of the American Republic a seminal source of inspiration for the study of contemporary American society and politics. By the 1970s, the interest of sociologists in Tocqueville’s work began to dwindle. By contrast, in political science Tocqueville’s status as a classic thinker of democracy was never in question. In recent years, however, sociologists have joined political scientists in responding to Tocqueville’s call for a “new political science”. His writings provide sociologists with an enduring source of inspiration for the analysis of social problems such as slavery, revolution, inequality, individualism, materialism, religion and colonialism.