ABSTRACT
This essay was first published as a review of Hugh Seton-Watson, The Decline of Imperial Russia (London, Methuen, 1952), in the New Statesman and Nation, 44, 1133 (22 November 1952).
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) was of a French aristocratic family. He was a magistrate, an active politician (1839-52) including being briefly in 1849 Minister for Foreign Affairs, and a historian. His major work on the French Revolution was L'Ancien Régime et la Revolution (1856).
