Old Regime and French Revolution

The Old Regime and the French Revolution

Introduction

“The Old Regime and the French Revolution” is a book written by Alexis de Tocqueville, who was a French historian. The original name of the book is “L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution” and it was written in the year 1856, and was later translated into English. The book revolves around the French society and discusses the events that took before the on-set of the French Revolution, which can also be referred to the Ancien Régime. Apart from that, the book analyzes the forces and causes that contributed to the start the Revolution and thus proves to be one of the main early and historical works regarding the French Revolution.

The book discusses the events preceding the French revolution and Tocqueville had developed his major theory about the Revolution, which is known as the theory of continuity. In this theory he stated that the French reverted to central government that was powerful, even though they had initially worked to disassociate and detach themselves from the past and old regime which was autocratic.

Developing Economics in England

It is common for the industries to go through major changes during the revolutions. This is because the whole society, its people and the system are facing changing scenarios and that causes changes to be brought about in the industries that are present in that time. The land and the earth structure also goes through changes as the on-going wars and the fights between people cause it to become distorted and take on a different form. This has been explained with relation to the industrial revolution in the book as the apparently feudal world of dues was supposed to have ended due to the revolution. The end to the system where homage is paid to a master in return for getting land would also have changed but Tocqueville discusses how the various circumstances that existed previously, changed after the revolution. At that time, even though the revolution had not started, the industry was still growing and was majorly led by entrepreneurial aristocrats who aimed to benefit from the capital that was a result of the industry's growth. However, this growth could not be matched to the same scale on which Britain's growth lied, yet it was huge and the revolution contributed to only lessening it instead of causing an increment in it.

Tocqueville related foreign trade's growth to the time period before the revolution and stated that it had grown to such a large extent that it caused Bordeaux to approximately become double its size in a time span of about thirty years. Apart from that, the practical size of France shrank to a great extent as the number of travelers increased and that resulted in an increased movement of goods as well, in terms of the speed with which they were moved.

The Industrial Revolution

When Tocqueville had discovered the apocalyptic spectacle that belonged to the working-class neighborhoods of Manchester when he paid a visit to England, he ...