INTRODUCTION

Tocqueville's life and work revolved around revolution. Had it not been for the 1830 revolution and the ambiguous situation it created for him, he would probably not have traveled to the United States. The 1789 revolution is the object of one of his two greatest works, and constantly present in the background of the other. His great-grandfather Malesherbes died under the guillotine, and his father, having narrowly escaped it, later wrote a book on the coming of the Revolution. Tocqueville was also a participant-observer in and a memorialist of the 1848 revolution, with an existential absorption in the events. In March 1849, he complained to a friend that “now that properties and life are no longer at stake, I cannot interest myself in anything. This is the evil of revolutions, which, like gambling, create the habit of emotions and make us love them for their own sake, independently of the gain” (L, p. 649). He probably had a better understanding of the dynamics of revolution than anyone before or since. He grasped the longue durée in which the causes of a revolution can be traced back over centuries, as well as its tumultuous unfolding day-by-day and blow-by-blow.

In his discussion of the causes of the English revolution, Lawrence Stone distinguishes among preconditions (1529–1629), precipitants (1629–39) and triggers (1640–42).