Friday 5 September 2008

 

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Clemency Burton-Hill
Clemency Burton-Hill

Clemency suggests


Alexis de Tocqueville

A cold fish in deep water

Hugh Brogan
Profile, 448pp, £30,
Malcolm Deas
Wednesday, 6th December 2006

There are many studies of Tocqueville’s books and writings. The publication of the surviving Oeuvres, papiers et correspondence began in 1951 and still drags on. Yet there have been few biographies. Hugh Brogan, who has edited for the Oeuvres the correspondence and conversations with Tocqueville with the English economist Nassau W. Senior, has now written the most complete life to date. He opens with a coy and whimsical declaration:

In recent years, seeing me so preoccupied with Tocqueville, some of my friends took to asking me if I liked him. I found the question difficult to answer, but my considered reply must be that Tocqueville is himself one of my oldest and dearest friends … and although I use a friend’s privilege to be frank about his weaknesses, no one else better do the same in my presence.

This hints at some of the difficulties he has had to face, and some of the reasons why there has been so much exegesis and so few Lives.

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