Try To Talk About Tocqueville's Democracy Thought And History Writing

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) is a well-known French politician, political thinker and a historian in the first half of the nineteenth century. Born in a noble family, what Tocqueville highly praised was the democracy and freedom. He made a keen observation on the political practice of democracy in America and the its characters at community level in his twenties, thus predicted that the democracy will be the future trend of historical development. Up till now. Democracy in America is still one of the classic texts in the study of American democracy. With a historical perspective. Tocqueville discovered that democracy is not only a political system, but also rooted deeply into American immigrations’ life and national spirit. Meanwhile, in the comparison of French and American revolutions, he gained an insight into the reasons which led to the complicatedness and iterance of French revolutions, thus shifting his research into the old regime in France. Through his rich political practice. Tocqueville could take a close look at the French political status and characteristics and also have access to the first-hand political and historical materials which helped lay a solid foundation for his another classic The Old Regime and the Revolution. Starting from the uniqueness of the French Revolution, this master piece demonstrated the inevitability as well as reasonableness of the Great Revolution by analyzing the growing of democratic factors under the old regime, In the meantime, his critical attitude towards democracy also enabled him to the recovery of centralism in the post-revolution era. Thus far Tocqueville not only pointed out the future trend of historical development, but also alerted his contemporaries that a scientific and rational attitude to democracy should be held when faced to this trend, which reflected his deep concern for political and social reality. As a witness to the development and iterance of French revolutions, his works are the crystallization of his thinking over the world modern history and political development in which democracy would become the mainstream. Therefore, a study of Tocqueville’s thoughts, especially his thoughts on democracy and history is of great significance.Since the second half of the nineteenth century, the study on Tocqueville and his thoughts involves multiple perspectives, such as political, social, historical, religious and so on. The reason for the multi-disciplinary research, on the one hand, is Tocqueville’s own writing style, which took multi-faceted observation on his research objects; on the other hand, is the development of disciplinary specialization since the nineteenth century, which made the study of a certain angle deeper but narrower. Among all these different views of study, Tocqueville’s political thoughts, especially his thought on democracy and his historical thought and writing got more attention than others. The more the disciplinary specialization develops, the more necessary it is for interdisciplinary study in order to achieve relatively comprehensive understanding on the research object. Therefore, this article chose the most two popular angles. Tocqueville’s thought on democracy and his historical writing, and tried to make an interactive interpretation between them.The reason why this article chose his thought on democracy as a study perspective is that not only many academic achievements have been made in this field which will be helpful to this article, but also democracy has become Tocqueville’s prediction for the world modern history. It was his thought on democracy formed after the study of democracy in America, that influenced his historical thought and writing, which reflected in his profound analysis of the old regime and the Great French Revolution. The close connection between his thought on democracy and his historical writing demands an interactional interpretation between them two and it will also provide a new perspective and paradigm to the study of Tocqueville.