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A review by dreamtokens
The Old Regime and the French Revolution by Alexis de Tocqueville
In The Old Regime and The Revolution, Alexis de Toqueville draws account of the state of things, people and laws, preceding the revolution, and how they lead to it and what came afterwards. The book is structured in chapters that follow the logic of first, answering why the revolution happened, and why it happened in France, second, showing what exactly in the order of society brought it and third, how revolutionary it actually was.
The Toqueville Paradox, which he manages to argue, is that the revolution will be made not by the people in the worst conditions, but by people who are, in fact, receiving better treatment than before. He writes that the most dangerous time for a regime is right after a very tough time, when trying to make changes, to bring new, maybe better laws. It is then that people see a glimpse of hope and, freed from a pain too difficult to bear, revolt against the one that remains.
Toqueville than takes apart the structures by which the old regime opperated and shows how they brought the revolution, but as well how they were mantained after it. He demonstrates that the revolution was so brutal because it was both religious and political, dismantleing the authority of the sacred king and the legitimacy of laws.
Because the people were so gravely seggregated into classes, the nobility was tucked away in palaces, the raising bourgeoise was running things, the farmers working, and each was hostile to one another, it was increasingly difficult to rule and, as King Ludwig XVI tried to make it easier by with new laws, he made people even more discontent.
The unique side of Toqueville 19s historical analysis, is, if one ignores his bouts of subjectivity, the account of all common things, laws and facts for groups of people, rather than the typical historical view on just major events or important figures.
The Toqueville Paradox, which he manages to argue, is that the revolution will be made not by the people in the worst conditions, but by people who are, in fact, receiving better treatment than before. He writes that the most dangerous time for a regime is right after a very tough time, when trying to make changes, to bring new, maybe better laws. It is then that people see a glimpse of hope and, freed from a pain too difficult to bear, revolt against the one that remains.
Toqueville than takes apart the structures by which the old regime opperated and shows how they brought the revolution, but as well how they were mantained after it. He demonstrates that the revolution was so brutal because it was both religious and political, dismantleing the authority of the sacred king and the legitimacy of laws.
Because the people were so gravely seggregated into classes, the nobility was tucked away in palaces, the raising bourgeoise was running things, the farmers working, and each was hostile to one another, it was increasingly difficult to rule and, as King Ludwig XVI tried to make it easier by with new laws, he made people even more discontent.
The unique side of Toqueville 19s historical analysis, is, if one ignores his bouts of subjectivity, the account of all common things, laws and facts for groups of people, rather than the typical historical view on just major events or important figures.