Individual Choice and the Structures of History: Alexis de Tocqueville as Historian Reappraised

Alexis de Tocqueville is recognised as one of the most important nineteenth-century historians. In this perceptive study, Harvey Mitchell examines afresh Tocqueville’s works, in particular the ‘Souvenirs’ of 1848 and his voluminous correspondence, to shed new light on Tocqueville’s philosophy of history. Professor Mitchell exposes the tensions which Tocqueville perceived between determined actions and choice, continuity and change, asking what happens to individual liberty if it is impossible to make a clean break with the past, and if past developments continue to influence the future. Professor Mitchell draws on the full range of Tocqueville’s writings to find in them a unity of thought and a deep involvement with the philosophical questions raised by historical continuity and change.