Tocqueville on Algeria

Abstract

On any list of the most penetrating and least deceived political theorists of the nineteenth century, Alexis de Tocqueville must be ranked high. Few others perceived the dangers both of egalitarianism and of racial thinking; of secular religions as well as of state churches; of historical determinism, as well as of those other explanations which equally well undermine responsibility by attributing everything to mere chance or to the appearance of exceptional individuals. Tocqueville insisted upon the obligation of free men to determine by empirical investigation just what are the genuine alternatives confronting them. By his own effort to perform this task, he made a classic contribution to the study of the relationships between social organization and political institutions.

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