Tocqueville's advice on French revolution captures Chinese leaders' attention

"What they read might reflect what they think," a middle-aged man said as he picked up a book recently recommended by the new head of the Communist Party's discipline watchdog.

"I am really keen to learn what Wang Qishan is thinking and what he wants officials to learn from the book," the man, a civil servant, said at the Wangfujing Bookstore in Beijing.

The book is Alexis de Tocqueville's The Old Regime and the Revolution, the French historian's treatise on the French revolution that started in 1789. A saleswoman at the shop said it had been unusually popular recently, following reports that Wang had recommended that officials read a Chinese translation published in 1994.

"Wang Qishan's recommendation reflects the Chinese leadership's sense of crisis, as the book provides a realistic way of thinking to analyse the current situation in China, though it might not necessarily help in finding [a] solution to its problems," said Gu Su , an expert on Tocqueville at Nanjing University, who is retranslating the book and compiling a collection of Tocqueville's other works.

Wang is not the only senior leader to have read The Old Regime and the Revolution, with a party insider saying that premier-in-waiting Li Keqiang mentioned it in a recent speech to cadres. Early last year, at the height of the Bo Xilai scandal which rocked the party, Wang began recommending that officials read the book.

After he became secretary of the Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in mid-November, Wang formally made it a must-read for party officials.