Old Regime and the Revolution

Author: Alexis de Tocqueville
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1997-02-01
Features: The famous work The Old Regime and the Revolution by French historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805—1859) has finally been presented to readers after being translated by Feng Tang, proofread by Professor Gui Yufang, and revised by me. The original was published in 1856, and it took 135 years for a Chinese translation to appear, which seems to have been a disservice to this "classic work." However, even in Europe and America, Tocqueville's reputation and academic status were only firmly established in recent decades. Tocqueville's breakthrough work was Democracy in America, which was published in 1835, with the second volume appearing in 1840. The following year, at the age of 36, he was elected as a member of the French Academy. For the next 15 years, he did not publish any major works, merely contemplating themes for new books in his spare time from politics. What new insights does The Old Regime and the Revolution bring us, and what original perspectives does it offer that previous scholars had not explored? Tocqueville begins by clarifying that he is conducting "research on the French Revolution," not writing another history of the. As "research," it is essential to raise questions. The chapter titles reveal the issues the author seeks to address. Methodologically, this can also be considered a form of problem-oriented history later pioneered by the "Annales School." For example, Tocqueville attempts to explain: Why did almost all of Europe have similar political systems, and how did they collapse everywhere? Why did feudal privileges become more detestable to the French people than in other places? Why was the centralized administrative system part of the old regime, rather than a creation of the or the Empire? Why were the people of 18th-century France more similar to each other yet more isolated and indifferent than people in other countries? Despite continuous progress in civilization, why did the conditions of 18th-century French peasants sometimes even worsen compared to those in the 13th century? Why did 18th-century French intellectuals become the nation's primary political figures? Why did the French prefer reform before freedom? Why did administrative revolution precede political revolution? The reign of Louis XVI was the peak prosperity of the old monarchy, but how did this prosperity accelerate the revolution? And so on. Almost every question could be written as a monograph. Unlike some 19th-century thinkers and philosophers—from Madame de Sta?l to J.-B. Say—Tocqueville did not engage in abstract "thinking" about the French Revolution but drew his conclusions through rigorous analysis of primary sources. He read and utilized a vast amount of archival material previously unexplored by predecessors, including ancient land surveys, tax records, reports and directives between local and central authorities, communications between ministers, records of the Estates-General, and petitions of 1789. He was a historian who meticulously examined laws on the sale of state property; he also made efforts to uncover materials related to the condition of peasants and peasant uprisings. Based on these historical records, he gained an in-depth understanding and vividly depicted the land, property, church, Estates-General, central and local administration, peasant life, noble status, and the condition of the Third Estate under the old regime, thereby elucidating his arguments.