Continuity and rupture in the Ancien Régime and the French Revolution: the problem of administrative centralization

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the works of Alexis de Tocqueville on the French Revolution. The text is presented in two parts. The first part, entitled “Tocqueville and the history of the Revolution: some questions of method”, is dedicated to his groundbreaking methodology based on a long-term view of the historical process, which tended to stress the structural continuities instead of ruptures in the Revolution. The second part, entitled “Centralization and revolution: continuity and rupture”, analyses the issue of the administrative centralization of the French State as the essential mechanism of this structural process.