Democracy a History

by John Dunn

Why is democracy so important today? Why does democracy, as both a word and an idea, linger so large in the current political imagination? Within the last three-quarters of a century, democracy has become the political core of the civilization that the West offers to the rest of the world. In Democracy: A History , John Dunn—England’s leading political theorist—sets out to explain the extraordinary presence of democracy in today’s world. The story begins in Greece, where democracy started as an improvised remedy for a very local difficulty twenty-five hundred years ago. But, democracy’s tenure was short-lived, fading away almost everywhere for nearly two thousand years. It reappeared with the founding of the new American republic and amid the struggles of the French Revolution. Charting democracy’s slow but insistent evolution from its ancient roots to its overwhelming triumph in a significant number of countries around the world in the years since 1945, Democracy: A History is a unique and brilliant account of this unique political phenomenon.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Historical

256 pages, Paperback

First published June 5, 2006

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

Reviews

[Talal Antakyalı · Rating 1 out of 5]

النجمة الوحيدة للترجمة لأنني لم أطلع على الكتاب بلغته الأصلية ولا أستطيع الحكم عليه.
هذه أسوأ تجربة لي في حياتي مع الكتب المترجمة!! لم أقرأ في حياتي ترجمة على هذا القدر من السوء والرداءة! لم أستطع طوال قراءتي للكتاب أن أفهم جملة مفيدة واحدة أو أن أستخلص منه أية فكرة واضحة ومفهومة! لا أدري إن كان الكتاب أساساً مكتوباً بأسلوب صعب ومرهق وأتوقع ذلك على الأرجح، لكن هذا لا يشفع للمترجم فمن الواضح أن ضعفه الشديد وعدم تمكنه قد زاد الطين بلةً وحول الكتاب في نسخته العربية إلى مجموعة طلاسم وألغاز! أتمنى ألا تكون كافة الترجمات الصادة عن مكتبة العبيكان بنفس هذه السوية فلديهم العديد من العناوين الرنانة والجذابة في مجال الكتب المترجمة لكن إن كان المحتوى بنفس هذه السوية فتلك خيبة أمل وكارثة حقيقية!

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dunn studies the history of the word and the idea of democracy from its inception in Athens, suggests why it went dormant for 2000 years, then picks up the study again with the American revolution and the French Revolution.

But this isn't primarily a linguistic or historical exercise, but rather a study of democracy as a process ("democratization") and as a form of government ("capitalist republic"), and a study of how the word "democracy" has been co-opted and changed and why it still has power today.

Dunn seems democracy as a split (framed in philosophy by Sieyes and in practice by Robespierre during the French Revolution) between equality and "egoism" - Ayn-Randian capitalism, basically, is how I'd describe Dunn's use of the word. The American experiment resolved the dialectic (Marxism is dead as a form of government but not forgotten as a way of thought) in favor of egoism by accepting limits on equality, with controls on egoism as envisioned by Madison in Federalist No. 10. This framed the success (i.e. avoidance of Terror) of the American revolution, while taking the practice of democracy as a form of government another step removed from the original Athenian definition and practice.

This salvation and distress is the form in which democracy has conquered the world. Dunn restates and sometimes overstates the uniqueness of his question, but the study is a worthy one.

[Pavol Hardos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good historical overview, very erudite framing, but too rambling and vague (despite being rather short). Often reads like a first draft of transcribed lecture notes, lacking a more exacting editorial supervision.

[Also: referring to contemporary events at the time of writing (Blair, Bush, Iraq War) may have seemed like a good idea, but it only makes the book appear more dated.]

[Nasser Moh'd · Rating 3 out of 5]

بحث حول الديمقراطيه المصطلح والنشأه والأفكار ، الكتاب فيه انصاف كثير وحياد علمي حول كيفية تشكل المصطلح منذ البدايه إلى اليوم ، ستجدون فيه الإجابه عن لماذا ألتهمت الديمقراطيه العالم اليوم ؟ .

إلا أن الترجمه خذلتني في بعض الأحيان

[Warren Wulff · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is unreadable. When discussing difficult ideas and histories spanning millennia, it’s important to write clear prose. However, almost from the start I was backing up and rereading paragraph after paragraph, trying to cut through the dense sentences to make sense. As well, I thought myself well read, but allusions are made in this book to events that I can’t imagine most people having a grasp of.

For example: Apparently, there was a political crisis in Algeria in 1991, and there was a difference in American and European consensus on the crisis. That’s it. I could find no tie in to democracy, I personally have no memory of this crisis, much less having the geopolitical understanding of it through divergent American and European lenses. And what does it matter to the topic at hand? Unknown.

Also, this book commits a sin that I find unforgivable when recounting democratic history, one that Americans commit with frequency in their political speeches: ignoring non-Athenian, non-American, and non-French democracy, as if it only sprang up in three places, ever. As someone who knows Scandinavian history, I am aware that Iceland has been a democracy for over 1000 years. Turn to the index to look up Iceland: nothing. The UK was a democracy, however strained, for hundreds of years before the American Revolution. Ditto Poland. No examination of either.

Finally, this book has not aged well. It was written in 2003 when democracy really was on the upswing and one could take it for granted that the “end of history” was here. Considering how many people in democratic countries are bamboozled by fascism at the moment and the rise of authoritarians, we need two new books written: one that provides a clear, comprehensive history of democracy, and another that perhaps focuses more on democratic principles and is a defence of democracy itself. It is, after all, our last best hope.

[K.T. ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am finally done with Dunn (I may or may not wait until the end of the book to say this).

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written a few years ago, before the USA came close to throwing away this glorious experiment with democracy (one that we have never embraced as fully as we should have), is a great reminder about where the idea comes from and how it has evolved over time. Not as easy to read as I would've preferred, but some great points made, particularly regarding revolutionary France.

[Alaa · Rating 3 out of 5]

هذا الكتاب فيه جانب حلو لكن لا أظن أنه يمكنني الاعتماد عليه أكاديميًا هو أشبه بورقة لم تكتمل بقيت مسودة مترجمة ونشرت.

[Tom Calvard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very learned and thoughtful reflections on the history of the concept and word democracy. However, I agree with another review I saw that said it reads like a series of disorganised essay materials to an extent. I did not find it easy to follow in parts.

At the same time, there are many profound and careful arguments about the limits and status of democracy, both as a value and a way of governing. But the book is theoretical and abstract rather than concrete and specific. So it's not always clear what to take from some of its careful and reasonable arguments, along with its necessarily pessimistic and detached conclusions.

Lots of food for thought perhaps, particularly towards the end when it discusses the limits and status of modern democracy around the globe today. However, the climax of the book ends up inevitably being a bit underwhelming and depressing.

Democracy is something widespread today, but existing in a constrained, limited form - a sort of 'least worst' way for humans to continue living together in societies, ensuring the relative autonomy and stability of populations. One wonders what Dunn would have to say about Brexit, Trump and other relevant events that have transpired since the publication of this book.

[Pedro · Rating 4 out of 5]

The winning offer from rulers to ruled is not a fixed sum, but a highly plastic, and always partially opaque, formula. It blends minimal recognition with quite extensive protection of the institutional requirements of the order of egoism. It ensures property law, commercial regulation, and a due balance between taxing enough to provide the protection and protecting enough against all forms of expropriation ( very much including taxation itself) for the order of egoism to proceed buoyantly on its way. The scope of recognition offered and the degree of protection provided are each renegotiated endlessly.
...
It is easy for electors not merely to regret individual past choices (bargains that have gone seriously astray), but also to lose heart more generally in face of the opinions presented to them.
...
Career politicians can come to be seen as systematically corrupt manipulators, reliably intent on nothing but furthering their own interests by using public authority ruthlessly in the service of the evidently sinister interests of small groups of independently powerful miscreants.
...
If democracy is simply a way of organizing the relationships between communities and their governments, it can scarcely in itself be an occasion for intense pride. Where communities are self-confident and proud, some of that pride will rub off on their political institutions, however the latter are structured (a point familiar to tyrants across the ages). Under less ebullient cirsumstances, the attitudes of communities to their governments are likely to be moulded largely on how groups or individuals within them see their own interests as served or damaged by their government...

The role of democracy as a political value within this remarkable form of life ( the World Order of Egoism) is to probe constantly the tolerable limits of injustice, a permanent and sometimes very intense blend of cultural enquiry with social and political struggle.
...

For that name (democracy) to be appropriate, it must mean more than this. More stirringly perhaps, it must also imply that representative democracy as it now is cannot be all for which we can reasonably hope. There must be some link between the historical fact that the word itself means so much more (or means something different) and the possibility that the way in which we are now governed can be altered to fit that word better, or at least recover some imaginative contact with it.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there is a nearly uncontested basis for legitimate government in the contemporary world, it is goes by the name "democracy." That's a remarkable word we've chosen because for the longest time it was a pejorative and originally it was the name for a form of government that has little resemblance to any today. This book is an historical explanation of how this weird situation came about.

The story begins with the original democracy in Ancient Athens. Unlike their neighbors, Athen's security depended on a citizen navy that drew disproportionately from the poor. The leverage that gave them may be the explanation for how their constitution got the anti-aristocratic reforms that made it democratic. The 10% of the populace who were citizens could win offices by lottery; but practically speaking only the rich could afford a role in this hyper-participatory kind of self-rule.

We are not the inheritors of any part of their institutions. It was all wiped out in political defeat 175 years after it started. What we know about it is mostly from Plato, Aristotle, and Thucydides. Commentators called it the rule of betters by their inferiors, a scheme to transfer wealth downward. Democracy becomes mostly a slur.

You see a few dissenters speak out in favor of democracy-like arrangements starting in the 1600s: Spinoza, then later Toland and Milton. Then especially the Levellers with slogans like "No human being comes into the world with a saddle on their back, or any other booted and spurred to ride them." America establishes a form of government that would retrospectively be called democratic, but that shift in interpretation is part of the puzzle here: Madison thought part of the point of republican form of government was "the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity from any share." Electing people to rule over you was not seen a democracy! Likewise with monarchists in France: the aristocrat D'Argenson wrote in favor of some limited democracy to help the king understand the common good.

Things really change with the French Revolution. France has some war debt that needs to be dealt with, and the ministers of the church and nobility (first and second estates, respectively) are uncooperative. The king tries to break through the log jam by summoning the Estates General. No one really knew how that worked, so parliament had to vote on the arrangements. They decided it would need to involve equal representation for the three estates -- the third estate being commoners. Then things start popping off.

Robespierre is the key figure in the story: more than anyone else he responsible for bringing democracy to life as a possible political allegiance. He was an egalitarian who favored universal franchise, rejecting the distinction between "active citizens" (tax payers, landholders, etc) and "passive citizens" (everyone else). Even so, Robespierre equated democracy with republican form of government. He needed to bring the mayhem of the revolution to a close, and so he explicitly denied the desirability of Athenian-style direct participation of citizens in government.

One way to see the special significance of Robespierre is to contrast him with Babeuf, one of the conspirators who unsuccessfully tried to bring about a second, greater revolution in France. Babeuf deplored the "order of egoism" exemplified by America: equality reduced to recognition, lack of overt political condescension, permitting of economic inequality, emphasis on private interests, Adam Smith. Instead he extolled the "order of equality," which entailed uncompromisingly egalitarian economy. Babeuf's conspiracy came to nothing.

Democratic republics with universal suffrage surprised everyone (other than Babeuf) by showing themselves compatible with the "order of egoism," even helping to keep capitalism on the rails. They granted cheap equality of recognition without redistribution, and somehow that proved enough to prevent popular revolt in many places. The banner of democracy was flown partly due to happenstance during WWII: capitalism was too impersonal to attract allegiance, and democracy (in weaker contemporary sense of popular representation) offered nice contrast with Japan, Germany. When the Soviet Union collapsed, US-style "democracy" was simply all that was left.

Dunn's story strikes an ambivalent note at the end. He takes seriously leftist critiques of contemporary so-called democracy as basically serving capital, permitting just so much economic redistribution as needed to forestall revolt. Representative democracy is not self-rule, really; not in the Athenian sense of popular participation, and not in the Babeufian sense of egalitarianism. The best that can be said for it is that it provides a modicum of political accountability, allowing us to throw the more egregious rascals out of office.

I'm not entirely sure how to evaluate this book. Certainly the first three chapters are interesting history, even if the telling is a little ornate for my taste. The fourth chapter, bringing us up to the present, is insightful on wartime propaganda; but it delves into more evaluative and speculative matters like the (in his view) poor prospects for deliberative democracy and leftist attempts to democratize the family. I don't mind a bracing splash of cold water and would be interested to read Dunn's criticisms at greater length elsewhere; they just didn't belong at the end of this book.

[Ahmad Alhrbi · Rating 2 out of 5]

رغم أن الكتاب وعنوانه ومبحثه شيق إلا أن الترجمة سيئة جداً جداً ... أتمنى صدور طبعة جديدة بترجمة غير تجارية

[Hamad Abdulsamad · Rating 3 out of 5]

قرأت الكتاب باللغة الانجليزية، طلبتها من موقع أمازون ولم أجد إلا نسخة مستعملة. كان قرار قراءته باللغة الانجليزية قرار سيء فاللغة صعبة علي، والمصطلحات إن كنت أعرف بعضها إلا أن استيعابها بطيء في ذهني. بالإضافة إلى أن الآمال على الكتاب كانت عالية جدا. ببساطة، لم أستمتع، أبطأ مسيري في جدول القراءة كما أنه أعادني لتلك العادة التي أقرأ بها فقط حتى أقلب الصفحة!
أظن أن الكتاب مفيد، وبصراحة حفزني للبحث أكثر، إلا أني أظن أن اللغة كانت حاجزا استطاع أن يلوث التجربة. الترجمة حسب ما أعرف سيئة.
هنا بعض الاقتباسات:

Democracy: a history
'Whithin the last three-quarters of a century democracy has become the political core of the civilization which the wests offer to the rest of the world' p14
!!!!!!!!!؟

Every where that the word democracy has fought its way forward across time and space, you can here both themes: the purposeful struggle to improve the practical circumstances of life, and to escape from arbitrary and brutal coercion, but also the determination and longing to be treated with respect and some degree of consideration. p19

This regime, which is called democracy (demokratia), because it is adminstered with a view to the interest of the many, not of the few, hasnt merely made athens great. p26

In the eyes of the old Oligarch, it was true in every country that those greater distinction oppose democracy, seeing themselves as repositories of decorum snd respect for justice, and their social inferiors as ignorant, disorderly and vicious. p28

For the old oligarch, in stark contrast, the democracy of Athens was a robust but flagrantly unedifying system of power, which subjected the noble elements of of its society to the meaner, transferred wealth purposefully from one to the other, and distributed the means of coercion clear-headidly and determinedly to cement this outcome and keep the nobler elements in control. p28

For the people do not want a good government underwhich they themselves are slaves, they want to be free and to rule.

Democracy in Athens arose out of struggles between wealthier landowners snd poorer families who had lost, or were in danger of losing, their land, and who therefore risked being forced into unfree labour by their accumilated devts. it didnt arise, directly and self-consciously through that struggle itself, by unmistakable victory of the poor over the rich, but through a sequence of political initiatives which reshaped the social geography and institutions of Athens, and endowed it with a political identity, and a system of self-rule, which equipped it to express and defend that identity. p32

The survival of democracy as a word, its penetration from ancient greek into wide range of later languages, and still more its inforced translation over a much briefier time-span into the language of every other substantial human population across the globe, came less from its continuing capacity to elicit enthusiasim than from its utility in organizing thoughts, facilitating argument and dhaping judgment. p39

To reject democracy today may just be, sooner or later, to write yourself out of politics. it is definitely to write yourself more or less at once out of polite political conversation.

Democracy has come to be our preferred name to our sole basis on which we accept either our belonging or our dependence. we may not embrace either with joy, or even ease, but, at least on this proviso, these might be communities which on balance we can accept rather fhan repudiate. it is, above all, our term for political identification, we, the people. what the term means (even now, when that so clearly is not how matters are in the outside world) is that the people (we) hold power and excercise rule. That is what it meant in Athens, where the claim bore some relation to the truth. That is what it means today, when it very much appears a thumping falsehood, a process within which democracy has often proved a far from preferred term for political identification. p51

Revolution sndcpunter revolution were born together... p102

They may try in vain to shut their eyes to the revolution which time and the force of things has brought about: it is real for all that. There was once a time when the third estate were serfs and the nobility was everything. Now the thirs estate is everything and nobility is only a word.But beneath this word, a new and intolerable aristocracy has slid in, and the people has every reason not to want any aristocrats. p109

Sieyes: 'During the long night of feudal barbarism, it was possible to destroy the true relations between men, to turn all concepts upside down, and to corrupt all justice, but as day dawns, so gothic absurdities must fly and the remnants of ancient ferocity collapse and disappear. This is quite certain.
p110

we merely be substituting one evil for another, or will social order, in all its beauty, take the place of former chaos? will the changes we are about to experience be the bitter fruit of a civil war, disastrous in all respects for the three orders and profitable only to ministerial power; or will they be neutral, anticipated and well comtroled consequence of a simple and just outlook, for a happy co-opperation favoured by the weight of circumstances, and sincerely promoted by all the classes concerned? p111

The quest to combine democracy with monarchy in varying proportions persisted in France itself in intervals for almost a century, with at least one notable triumph along the way in the person of Napeleon. It was emulated widely elsewhere for quite some time, and is still not wholly discredited in some settings (Morocco, Thailand, Holland, Sweden, Britain and in future perhaps Saudi Arabia). p120

The main motif in Buonarrotis account was his insistence on equality as the Revolution's deepest and most transformative goal, and on the profound gulf between the true defenders of equality and their sly and all too politically effective adversaries, the partisians of the order egoism, or 'the english doctrine of the economists', who had struggled against them throughout its course, and ended by triumphing over them. p124

What had lost France both democracy and liberty even before Thermindor was the diversity of views, the conflicts of interests, the lack of vertue, unity and virtue, unity and perseverance in the National Assembly at which the conspirators aimed, democrats to a man, would display none of these vices and weaknesses. The point of vetting, and the grounds for operating not merely in secret but as tightly organized body bound together in shared conviction, was precisely to eliminate them. p125

in America, democracy soon became the undisputed political framework and expression of the order of egoism. ... It arose from and indorsed a society both self-consciously and actually in rapid motion, expanding in territory, growing in wealth, and looking forward to a future of permenant and all but limitless change. p126

For us it has come to name not merely a form of government, but also, and very bit as much, a political value. p130

The market economy is the most powerful mechanism for dismantling equality that humans ever fashioned. p137

Under democracy, it must be the people of Iraq who decide whom or what they wish to be friend or oppose. they prove to differ bitterly with one another over the question: and very few of them seem drawn to American views on the matter. p141

Democracy in itself, as we have seen, does not specify any clear and difinite structure of rule. p149

BeforeOxtober 1917 virtually all all twentieth-centurywestern socialists were democrats in their own eyes, however much they might differ in goals, political temperament or preferred institutional expediments. Within three years, socialists across the world were divided bitterly by the new russian regime, rejecting it catagorically for its tyranny and oppression, or insisting that it and it alone was the true bearer of the torch of the equals. For those who adopted the second point of view, anyone who disputed its title to democracy or censured it governmental style simply showed themselves partisians of the order of egoism: object lackeys of the rich. p157

><^

Democratization is open-ended, indeterminate and explaratory. It sets out from, and responds to, the conception of democracy as a political value, away on which whatever matters deeply for a body of human beings should in the end be decided. P179

... democracy as it now is cannot be all for which we can reasonably hope. p185

the more governments control what their fellow citizens know the less they can claim the authority of those citizens for how they rule. 185

[Robert Corbett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be required reading for all citizens of US. A lovely example of a scholar and philosopher who has contributed more than their share of technical and esoteric work to gain his professorship writes (usually towards the sunset of a career) a book that asks a simple question and then elaborates it in necessary and fascinating ways. The q: Why is Democracy the standard that nearly all reform and reactionary movements in our contemporaneity march under? It may seem obvious but it is not. Democracy the word and many of its connotations is the work of classical Athens which only gave franchise to men of standing and depended on slavery for its economy. The Romans would have called democracy mob rule which tenured professors will still say it is, though their standard was Liberty. It lay virtually dormant for some 2000 years (in the West) until it emerged in England (but not really, Shelley signed himself in to lodgings as an Atheist and a Democrat by which he was trolling). It got more than a little push from Robespierre and the Jacobins, and the confusions of US also exported it. One thinks one knows what it is, but pause .,. exactly who gets to weigh in on what decision? US is by no means a country that enacts one person one vote policies (this makes Wyoming and Delaware happy). Is it more observed in the breach? In a country of such demographic diversity and geographic splay is practicable. (No theorist of organization would say 50 administrative units was a good idea!) Democracy is a critical genealogy in the best sense (borrowed from Jonathan Arac). A book that asks searching questions with one point examples and provides a frame for further discussion. It can be read quickly but returned to for further inspiration. Democracy by John Dunn is simply one of the necessary books of our time along with Sebastian Junger's Tribes and Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me.

[fathi esam · Rating 3 out of 5]

الديمقراطية التي نعرفها والتي لا نعرفها....

ما معنى كلمة ديمقراطية... ولماذا أصبحت هي نظام الحكم الشائع حاليا في كل أنحاء العالم... وكيف تطورت وتغيرت ملامحها على مدار الزمن لتناسب الوقت الحالي الذي نعيشه الان... هل النظام الديمقراطي هو النظام المثالي لإدارة البلاد والمجتمعات....

في هذا الكتاب الكاتب لا يريد أن يعطيك أجوبة لاسئلتك الكثيرة... بل يحاول ان يشرح معنى الكلمة ( اختيار الشعب للحكام) ويقتفي أثر كلمة ( ديمقراطية) منذ ظهورها في اليونان في دولة الأغريق و بالأخص أثينا على يد بيركليس وبعد الملاحظات عنها وعن رائ الفلاسفة الأغريق في مصطلح الديمقراطية في وقتها... ثم ينتقل الكاتب الي عصرنا الحديث ليختار نماذج أعادت أحياء مصطلح الديمقراطية بشكل جديد مختلف عن ديموقراطية بيركليس ( الثورة الفرنسية واعلان قيام دولة الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية وانفصالها عن المستعمرات البريطانية)... أحداث تاريخية كبيرة ومؤثرة في شكل العالم كانت الديمقراطية هي حجر أساس في حدوثها... الديمقراطية التي تم استحداثها لتلائم الطامعين ورجال السياسة والاغنياء وتساعدهم في تهيئة الحكم وإدارة البلاد لهم....

الكتاب ينتمي لفئة كتب التاريخ السياسي ومكتوب بشكل بحثي مرتب ولكن طول الوقت احساس ان فيه خلل ما في الكتابة كان ملازمني لا أعلم هل ده سوء ترجمة ام ان النص نفسه كان لا يحتمل الترجمة...

في كل الأحوال هو كتاب جيد سيجعلك تنظر نظرة جديدة لفكرة الديمقراطية وتدرك سر انتشارها بشكل واسع في كل بلاد العالم حاليا...

⭐⭐⭐

[Simon Banks · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Dunn asks some much-needed difficult questions about democracy, its survival and its future. He discusses historical developments, especially in late 18th Century America and France, with authority and clarity. It's generally quite easy to read, though with the occasional ultra-obscure word, but compared to his other works, repetitive in places (he spends a lot of time dismissing the idea that the power of democracy lies simply in the word). He points out the fatal flaws of different ideologies: as a Liberal, I feel he misses much of what Liberalism is about, but then his model is what I now call "Wide Liberalism", roughly, what is required for a "Liberal Democracy", which is far less demanding than what most Liberals believe. Although the book has been reissued with a new conclusion, he saw very early that our present politics was failing to address the climate crisis. He offers no solution, but that was not his purpose. A book to make us think.

[Kevin Keating · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really didn't like this book. I teach a class in the history of democracy and thought I ought to read it, and finish it (even though I didn't want to). I found it mostly incomprehensible. It was like reading a rough draft of a research paper in which one never really knew what the thesis was, but the kid had to make his 30,000 words or whatever. Doesn't seem like the author never really had a thesis either. I guess I could sum it up by reviving Churchill's saying that democracy is the worst form of govt but it's better than anything else out there. Don't bother reading it. I warned you. The reason I gave it the second star was that occasionally there were easter eggs that I found really interesting to think about or exceptionally profound. But not often enough.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Dunn's writing and use of language. And I appreciated his obvious breadth of knowledge. Anyone who can characterize people living under modern democracies as being in a state of involuntary befuddlement clearly has something to say. But his insights are hidden behind his brilliant turn of phrase. I'd like to either re-read the book, carefully, or interview Mr. Dunn to understand his points. I get the outline but would like a clearer understanding.

[Noah Kidd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could give this book a 3.5 star rating. The book is valuable in many respects, particularly for those interested in knowing more about the concept of democracy. However, the way Dunn organizes and presents his ideas makes a 4 star rating seem too generous. Dunn clearly has excellent ideas but needs to get a better copy editor.

[Leif · Rating 2 out of 5]

It reads as it was probably written: like the polished lecture notes of a 20-year old syllabus run by a 70-year old lecturer. My fundamental takeaway from this is that "democracy" is an unusually successful word, and that's not super helpful.

[Iwan Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s fascinating however it reads more as a lecture than a coherent point. It’s a bit all over the place however still really cool. I read it in a bit of a rush for interview prep so that’s probably not helped.

[Faisal ElBeheiry · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب ممل نوعا ما عن تاريخ الديمقراطية.

[Astrid]

l'écriture de ce prof me donne envie de crever

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A realist assessment of democracy's limits and a meditation on the historical oddity of its rise to an idea of world-historical force.

[Илья Дескулин · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poorly written and inconclusive. The main ideas could have been put in 50 pages. And even then the book would not be of great value from the perspectives of political philosophy or history of ideas.

[Amaël · Rating 2 out of 5]

Insightful at times, but rambling and hard to get into even for political theory nerds.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Enjoyed going through the ancient past, the renaissance stages and then the modern world starting in America, then the French Revolution and then democracy how we know it since the 20th century.

The word democracy is confusing, it carries multiple meanings, hopes, ambitions, programs of government, forms of rule, etc. So many things in one word! But that is a great concept and an inviting lure to better forms of rule.

Mostly appreciated the discussion in terms of the order of egoism that rules through 'democracy' and the order of equality who has ruled so far through 'communism'. It is difficult to find a middle way that is perfect between the two orders - that is what social democracies aim to achieve. And what communist societies failed to achieve.

But the almost universally accepted fact that egoism or pursuing personal interests is the best driver for human beings, leaves you looking for different answers and alternative ways out of the maze of egoism into the realm of equality and of a better rule where equality as well as egoism are worth the same! The book doesn't give that final answer but it poses the right questions in a historical and political perspective.

[Nynke Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want to get a general overview of both democracy as a word and democracy as a system you should read this book. It makes you understand the distinction between democracy as a political value and democracy as a form of government. It also gives a good explanation of 'the order of egoism' and 'the order of equality'. Because this book has only four chapters and no other sections you should keep paying attention all the time (the structure could be better).
As I said, it's a good overview. You won't find detailed information about types of democracies in different countries, but you should already know that, given the title.

[John Turlockton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Complete garbage, could barely get through a chapter. Meandering, doesn't stick to a point. Certainly doesn't make a clear point and doesn't give any evidence for any positive statements he does make. It's a personal reflection on democracy, not a real scholarly work. Reminds me of academics from the 1960s or before who were so self-important they thought making a cogent argument based on evidence was beneath them.

[M7md Alghanmi · Rating 3 out of 5]

معرفة الاعتبارات الكثيرة وراء اهم كلمة سياسية حاليا "الديمقراطية" هو موضوع مهم جدا.
الكتاب عبارة عن بحث عظيم يتحدث عن تاريخ الديمقراطية ويُطَعِّمه الكاتب بالأفكار والاعتراضات.
الكتاب محايد جدا وهذا يضيف كثيرا الى قيمته.
…
الترجمة سيئة جدا وظالمة جدا لعظمة الكتاب الأصلي!!
وجمع الهوامش في آخر الكتاب من أشد الغباء و تشتيت القراء!!