Description: Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) is familiar to readers as the author of Democracy in America, the most-quoted book written about the United States. The Old Regime and the Revolution is Tocqueville's great meditation on the origins and meanings of the French Revolution. One of the most profound and influential studies of this pivotal event, it remains a relevant and stimulating discussion of the problem of preserving individual and political freedom in the modern world. Writing in 1851, Tocqueville showed the continuity of French political behavior and social attitudes before and after the Revolution. He discussed the dangers to political freedom posed by tendencies towards government centralization and persistent class hostility that endured from the old regime to the Revolution and beyond.

Alan Kahan's new translation finally provides a faithful, readable rendering in English of Tocqueville's last masterpiece, surpassing existing English editions of the work now decades old. The first translation to be based on the forthcoming French critical edition, it includes notes and variants, which reveal Tocqueville's sources and include excerpts from his drafts and revisions. The introduction by France's most eminent scholars on Tocqueville and the French Revolution, Francoise Melonio and the late Francois Furet, provides a brilliant analysis of the work.

A major scholarly event, this handsomely produced book will be the definitive English edition of one of the classics of modern intellectual history.

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