Related Papers
Irish Marxist Review
Review: Brian S. Roper, The History of Democracy: A Marxist Interpretation
2014 •
Stewart Smyth
The Secret History of Democracy (Palgrave Macmillan)
Democratising the History of Democracy
2011 •
Benjamin Isakhan
The aim of The Secret History of Democracy has been to open debate on a larger view of democratic practice than that encapsulated by its wellknown standard history. The book came about from a concern that, while democracy was experiencing an ascendancy that began in the aftermath of the Second World War and intensified with the end of the Cold War, the global uptake of this particular form of governance came at the very moment when its limitations were becoming clearer: in its European and American heartlands there was less interest in participating in democracy; Clinton began in hope but ended in scandal; 9/11 was a victory for intolerance precisely because Western democracy restricted its own freedoms; the Bush, Blair and Howard governments became less relevant to their constituents and waged unpopular wars; the global financial crisis revealed democracy’s dependence on a flawed economic model; and difficulties in dealing with the global impact of climate change showed the limitations of national democracies, hostage to sectional interests. The exemplars of democracy were not having an easy time.
The Edinburgh Companion to the History of Democracy (Edinburgh University Press)
The Complex and Contested History of Democracy
2012 •
Benjamin Isakhan
Democracy has never been more popular. It is successfully practiced today in a myriad of different ways by people across virtually every cultural, religious or socio-economic context. The forty-five essays collected in this companion suggest that the global popularity of democracy derives in part from its breadth and depth in the common history of human civilization. The chapters include exceptional accounts of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, modern Europe and America, among peoples’ movements and national revolutions, and its triumph since the end of the Cold War. However, this book also includes alternative accounts of democracy’s history: its origins in prehistoric societies and early city-states, under-acknowledged contributions from China, Africa and the Islamic world, its familiarity to various Indigenous Australians and Native Americans, the various challenges it faces today in South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the latest democratic developments in light of globalization and new technologies, and potential future pathways to a more democratic world. Understanding where democracy comes from, where its greatest successes and most dismal failures lie, is central to democracy’s project of inventing ways to address the need of people everywhere to live in peace, freedom and with a say in the decisions that affect their lives.
The Secret History of Democracy (Palgrave Macmillan)
Democracy and History
2011 •
Benjamin Isakhan
The notion that democracy could have a ‘secret’ history might at first seem strange to many readers. Indeed, the history of democracy has become so standardized, is so familiar and appears to be so complete that it is hard to believe that it could hold any secrets whatsoever. The ancient Greek practice of demokratia and the functions of the Roman Republic are foundational to Western understanding of politics; school textbooks introduce the Magna Carta and the rise of the English Parliament; Hollywood blockbusters recount the events surrounding the American Declaration of Independence; many best-selling novels have been written about the French Revolution; and the gradual global spread of the Western model of democracy has been a recurrent news story since the end of the Cold War. So pervasive is this traditional story of democracy that it has achieved the status of received wisdom: endlessly recycled without criticism by policy-makers, academics, in the popular media and in classrooms across the world. The central argument of this book is that there is much more to the history of democracy than this foreshortened genealogy admits. There is a whole ‘secret’ history, too big, too complex and insufficiently Western in character to be included in the standard narrative.
An Essay on Post-Modern Democracy
2017 •
Paris J Arnopoulos
Edinburgh University Press
The Edinburgh Companion to the History of Democracy
2012 •
Benjamin Isakhan
Democracy has never been more popular. It is successfully practiced today in a myriad of different ways by people across virtually every cultural, religious or socio-economic context. The forty-five essays collected in this companion suggest that the global popularity of democracy derives in part from its breadth and depth in the common history of human civilization. The chapters include exceptional accounts of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, modern Europe and America, among peoples’ movements and national revolutions, and its triumph since the end of the Cold War. However, this book also includes alternative accounts of democracy’s history: its origins in prehistoric societies and early city-states, under-acknowledged contributions from China, Africa and the Islamic world, its familiarity to various Indigenous Australians and Native Americans, the various challenges it faces today in South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the latest democratic developments in light of globalization and new technologies, and potential future pathways to a more democratic world. Understanding where democracy comes from, where its greatest successes and most dismal failures lie, is central to democracy’s project of inventing ways to address the need of people everywhere to live in peace, freedom and with a say in the decisions that affect their lives.
Socialist Register
From Democracy to Socialism: Then and Now
2017 •
Paul Raekstad
Recent years have seen calls for ‘democracy’, from the Arab Spring to Occupy to those constructing Democratic Confederalism in Rojava. In light of this, what could and should socialists take democracy to mean today? Is it problematically tied to the capitalist state, or can it be reclaimed for socialist politics? This article argues that a radical, socialist concept of democracy can be re-constructed from the early Marx, that its idea remains central to Marx’s later conception of socialism, and that it can be useful for socialists today. The early Marx’s radical concept of democracy can provide us with a coherent, compelling, and uncompromisingly radical way of spelling this value out both for critiquing capitalism and the capitalist state and for guiding their replacement.
Global Intellectual History
Towards a Universal History of Democracy
2023 •
Charles Chih-Hao Lee
Review of A Cultural History of Democracy, 6 vols., edited by Eugenio F. Biagini, London, Bloomsbury, 2021, 2016 pp., £440.00 (Hardback), ISBN: 9781350042933
Democracy and Its Implications. An Introduction
2019 •
Fabrizio Sciacca
Socialist Register
The truth about capitalist democracy
2009 •
Atilio Alberto Boron
