The most important contribution to our understanding of the French Revolution was written almost one hundred years ago by Alexis de Tocqueville.
Alexis De Tocqueville
About Alexis De Tocqueville
One of America's premier essayists, Joseph Epstein was the editor of The American Scholar for 25 years and has taught--and continues to teach--advanced prose, the reading and writing of fiction, the sociology of literature, autobiography, literature and politics, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Willa Cather at Northwestern University. Epstein is the author of 13 books, most recently Life Sentences and Narcissus Leaves the Pool, and has published roughly four hundred essays, stories, reviews and articles in such journals as The New Yorker, Harper's, Times Literary Supplement, The New Republic, Commentary, The New Criterion, The New York Review of Books, Encounter, The New York Times Magazine, and Dissent.
The Old Regime and the French Revolution by Alexis de Tocqueville translated by Stuart Gilbert