2017 Reprint of 1856 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. In this work de Tocqueville analyzes French society before the French Revolution--the so-called "Ancien Regime"--and investigates the forces that caused the Revolution. It is one of the major early historical works on the French Revolution. De Tocqueville develops his main theory about the French revolution, the theory of continuity, in which he states that even though the French tried to dissociate themselves from the past and from the autocratic old regime, they eventually reverted to a powerful central government, in the form of Napoleon.