Democracy

2500 years ago the small Greek city state of Athens invented a new form of political regime. This book explains how a casual practical solution to local Greek political difficulties so very long ago has come to stand virtually unchallenged as the ground for modern political authority. It shows how the idea of democracy has kept its power in a world which is utterly different from the world of classical Greece and how the questions which the Greeks first raised about the meaning of democratic rule still loom over human political and economic institutions in a setting in which no modern population can ever rule in practice, day by day, as the Athenian demos ruled. By viewing its history across this great arc of time, the book shows why democracy today has both the power and the vulnerability which make it the key to understanding politics; and it explains why it has triumphed so decisively in the modern world.

ISBN 0198273789   DEWEY edition DC20 ISBN13 9780198273783 (What's this?)   Pages 302 Publisher Oxford University Press   Weight (grammes) 638 Imprint Oxford University Press   Published in Oxford Format Hardback   Height (mm) 230 Publication date 10 Sep 1992   Width (mm) 150 Non-book description xii290   Spine width (mm) 23 Library of Congress JC421.D463   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly, General DEWEY 321.809

		List of Contributors
1		Creation and Development of Democratic Institutions in Ancient Greece by Simon Hornblower		1
2		Ancient Greek Political Theory as a Response to Democracy by Cynthia Farrar		17
3		Democracy, Philosophy, and Science in Ancient Greece by G. E. R. Lloyd		41
4		The Italian City-Republics by Quentin Skinner		57
5		The Levellers by David Wootton		71
6		Democracy and the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood		91
7		Democracy and the French Revolution by Biancamaria Fontana		107
8		Democracy since the French Revolution by Charles S. Maier		125
9		The Marxist-Leninist Detour by Neil Harding		155
10		India's Democratic Career by Sunil Khilnani		189
11		Losing the Faith: Feminism and Democracy by Susan Mendus		207
12		1989 in Eastern Europe: Constitutional Representative Government as a 'Return to Normality'? by Neal Ascherson		221
13		Conclusion by John Dunn		239
		Further Reading		267
		Index		279

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