The Challenges of Democracy

by Jonathan Sumption

240 pages, Paperback

Published April 7, 2026

About the author

The son of a barrister, Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption attended Eton then Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with first-class honours in history in 1970. After being called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1975, he became a Queen's Council in 1986 and a Bencher in 1991. He is joint head of Brick Court Chambers and was appointed to the UK Supreme Court in 2011. He has written numerous books on history and is a governor of the Royal Academy of Music.