Alexis de Tocqueville: The prophet of democracy

A biography of one of the most important modern political thinkers, Alexis de Tocqueville. Author of the classic "Democracy in America," a book essential to the history of democratic thought, Alexis was the son of a noble family that practically disappeared during the French Revolution. He was an ambitious politician during the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and the Second French Republic, and held a prominent position in the revolutionary drama of his time. Hugh Brogan details Tocqueville's life and accurately describes a compelling web of intimate and public events that contributed to the intellectual formation of an inescapable thinker: his marriage to a less wealthy woman, the illnesses that plagued him over the years, the break with the expectations of his noble family, and his difficulty understanding why it was so difficult for France to assimilate the Protestant ethic.