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> He left behind one or two books that are still worth reading, but his most important legacy was his simplest.

Was this irony/sarcasm? Because my detector is off.

First of all, I read his 2 volumes of "Democracy in America" a couple of years ago, right after I had read Thucydides's "History of the Peloponnesian War" and just before reading Lord Acton's essays on liberty, and I challenge any of today's economists/political thinkers to come up with something at least 50% better.

Second, Tocqueville's "L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution" is in my opinion the book that best describes/explains the French Revolution, which I also think is the event that most defines the last 200 years of Western history and political thought, starting from Kant and continuing with guys like Marx and Lenin.



It's understatement, a form of irony. Think, "'Tis but a scratch," or, "It's just a flesh wound," from Holy Grail.




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