Recent years have brought renewed interest in Count Leopold Thun-Hohenstein. This Bohemian aristocrat influenced politics in his home province throughout the nineteenth century and shaped the Habsburg education system as the minister of education and religion from 1849–1860. The latter activity has been the most prominent topic of research in the last decennia, including a recent project of Brigitte Mazohl (Innsbruck) to edit Thun's correspondence (Die Korrespondenz von Leo von Thun-Hohenstein. Ein Forschungsprojekt am Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften und Europäische Ethnologie an der Universität Innsbruck, available at http://thun-korrespondenz.uibk.ac.at). This publication by Hana Fořtová and Doubravka Olšáková deals with yet another topic: Thun's correspondence with French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville, whom the young aristocrat met in Paris in 1835 and exchanged nineteen letters (four of which are presumed lost) over the years (240). Although some of the letters were already published by Christoph Thienen-Adlerflycht in his book on Thun (Graf Leo Thun im Vormärz, 1967), the editors found additional ones in the French National Archives that allow them to trace the information exchange between these two intellectuals.

Notwithstanding the small quantity of letters, the issues covered in them are quite diverse, ranging from personal information, Thun's comments regarding Tocqueville's books on the penitentiary system and democracy in America, and Tocqueville's explanation of how the French conservation of historical monuments was structured, to the discussion of the penal system in Bohemia. One gets the impression that Thun was not only lively, interested, and well informed in French developments, but his own activity in Bohemia also reflected recent developments in the Kingdom of France, such as the architectural conservation movement. The young Bohemian aristocrat's comments are the most valuable and exciting parts of the letters, presenting him as an enlightened liberal who was interested in the social well-being of Habsburg subjects and critical of the empire's absolutist hierarchies. In 1856, Tocqueville himself commented on Thun in similar words, characterizing him as an innovative thinker and proponent of national enlightenment (139).

Another source printed and edited in the book is Thun's 1836 A Need for a Moral Reform of the System of Incarceration with Reference to the Measures Adopted in Different Countries in favor of its Introduction [Die Notwendigkeit der moralischen Reform der Gefängnisse mit Hinweisung auf die zur Einführung derselben in einigen Ländern getroffenen Maßregeln beleuchtet], reprinted in the original German text and the Czech translation. Thun discusses here the penal systems abroad and proposes reforms of prisons in the Habsburg state. With his Catholic and modernizing agenda, he projects, among others, a more individualized prison organization, state-organized support for released convicts, and the creation of a special institution for young criminals. As the editors state in the introduction, Prague's prison system, reformed partially under Thun's influence, and including the Organization for the Betterment of Released Prisoners [Verein zum Wohl entlassener Züchtlinge], was in fact the most modern in the monarchy in Vormärz (124).

The description and analysis of the penitentiary system in Bohemia and its reforms take up almost one-fifth of the book and most of the introduction written by the editors. Fořtová and Olšáková scrutinize the discussions from the late eighteenth to the mid nineteenth century, both abroad (e.g., John Howard and Charles Lucas) and in the monarchy (e.g., Moriz Stubenrauch, František Josef Řezáč, Jozsef Eötvös, and Lukács Moricz), to contextualize Thun's ideas. They place his writing in the tradition of enlightened discussions of penal reforms, but with a strong local edge of Bolzanoism (110). As the editors show, Habsburg intellectuals of Vormärz were well informed and linked with reformers across Europe, although it is hard to say to what extent these discussions led to reformist outcomes because the editors concentrate more on the discourse than on penal practice. The description of the Organization for the Betterment of Released Prisoners, established in 1838 in Prague and presided over by Thun, features centrally in the editorial introduction (124). As the first organization of this kind in the monarchy, it had special consideration for young prisoners and their reintegration (129–131), and the organization's successes in reintegration were also acknowledged outside of the Habsburg state (133).

Prison system reforms comprise the most important parts of the volume, notwithstanding more prominently publicized letters. The volume's very careful and meticulous editing, presenting the text in both the original language and Czech translation and explaining the meandering legal discussions in the first half of the nineteenth century, is an invaluable asset, making the juridical issues accessible for general historians. Although not intended to be an exhaustive study of the Bohemian penal system, it does quite a lot in this regard, using interesting material from Thun's estate in the Děčín Archive, so far largely underutilized by Habsburg historians.