Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian and philosopher (died 1859)

Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville, was a French diplomat, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his works Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both, he analyzed the living standards and social conditions of individuals as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after Tocqueville's travels in the United States and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science.