Tocqueville, Alexis de. L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution. XXI, 456 pp., 1 Bl. 21 x 13 cm. HLeinenband d. C. (something rubbed; External joints partly brittle) with goldgepr. Title. Paris, M. Lévy, 1856. Kindler XVI, 618th – First edition. Tocqueville's 'Ancien Regime' has general significance beyond the specific issue. No one before him had penetrated so deeply into the essential, had so clearly recognized the lasting core, the historical continuity, among the changing outer forms. Romantics and liberals had almost without exception regarded the French Revolution as a complete break with the past. ... Tocqueville showed that in many respects the revolution only brought to an end or continued a development that had already begun before, that it often only sanctioned conditions that had formed names, among other things, before 1789. He gave the first truly philosophical book on political history: he taught to recognize the inner essence beyond the external appearance, to see connections even where the stupid eye of the pragmatist and the political doctrinal meant to find irreconcilable opposites. ... His ingenious representation takes into account the slow-acting forces in the same way as the more prominent, ... He did not see in the 'Ancien Regime' a long time lasting state ... Tocqueville no longer speaks of people, nobility, kingship; he distinguishes classes and estates. ... Tocqueville felt so lonely in his time and country that he did not think of the possibility of gaining influence with his thoughts. ... Above his presentation lies philosophical rest spread. The tone of the grandstand is banished." (Fueter, history of recent historiography, p. 559 f.). – Vord. fl. Consummation with old-hand ownership note; slightly tanned; overall clean specimen.