The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville

by Olivier Zunz

🏆 Winner of the Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique 2022

An excellent biography of Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th-century French politician and author of Democracy in America and The Ancien Regime and the Revolution.

Our most recommended books

Speak, Memory
by Vladimir Nabokov
A Promised Land
by Barack Obama
Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon
by Sir Henry Channon
Supermac
by DR Thorpe
Basil Street Blues
by Michael Holroyd
The Self-Aware Image: An Insight Into Early Modern Meta-Painting
by Victor Stoichita

Support Five Books

Five Books interviews are expensive to produce, please support us by donating a small amount.

About

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

Get our newsletter

Nonfiction Books » Best Biographies

The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville

by Olivier Zunz

Our most recommended books

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon by Sir Henry Channon

Supermac by DR Thorpe

Basil Street Blues by Michael Holroyd

The Self-Aware Image: An Insight Into Early Modern Meta-Painting by Victor Stoichita

About

Speak, Memory
by Vladimir Nabokov

A Promised Land
by Barack Obama

Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon
by Sir Henry Channon

Supermac
by DR Thorpe

Basil Street Blues
by Michael Holroyd

The Self-Aware Image: An Insight Into Early Modern Meta-Painting
by Victor Stoichita