"Today, democracy is the world's only broadly accepted political system, and yet it has become synonymous with disappointment and crisis. How did it come to this? In [this book], James Miller, author of the classic history of 1960s protest "Democracy Is in the Streets", offers a lively, surprising, and urgent history of the democratic idea from its first stirrings to the present."--Jacket.

Only once in the last 250,000 years did humans lift themselves out of their natural environment of poverty. It happened in eighteenth-century England, and it was an accident. The emergence of freedom and prosperity was nothing short of a miracle. The radical ideas that made the miracle possible were written not just into the Constitution, but in our hearts, laying the groundwork for our uniquely prosperous society. But now the principles of liberty...

A celebration of the acclaimed television, radio, and internet news program Democracy Now! and the extraordinary heroes who have moved our country forward. --Publisher

Examines the struggle between democracy and demagogues by exploring the works of philosophers on the subject and presenting an analysis of well-known demagogues.

"A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist explains, with electrifying clarity, why some of her contemporaries have abandoned liberal democratic ideals in favor of strongman cults, nationalist movements, or one-party states. Across the world today, from the U.S. to Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege while different forms of authoritarianism are on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum argues...

Readers will learn about where and how democracy began and how it has developed over the years.

"An urgent and deeply necessary work, Dear Zealots offers three ... essays that speak directly to our present age, on the rise of zealotry in Israel and around the world. From the incomparable Amos Oz comes a series of three essays: on the universal nature of fanaticism and its possible cures, on the Jewish roots of humanism and the need for a secular pride in Israel, and on the geopolitical standing of Israel in the wider Middle East and internationally....

"A bold guide to how we must re-envision citizenship if American democracy is to survive. The United States faces dangerous threats from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, terrorists, climate change, and future pandemics, but the greatest peril to the country comes not from abroad but from within, from none other than ourselves. The question facing us is whether we are prepared to do what is necessary to save our democracy. The Bill of Obligations...

"Rarely does a work of history contain startling implications for the present, but in The People, No Thomas Frank pulls off that explosive effect by showing us that everything we think we know about populism is wrong. Today "populism" is seen as a frightening thing, a term pundits use to describe the racist philosophy of Donald Trump and European extremists. But this is a mistake. The real story of populism is an account of enlightenment and liberation;...