Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy, Second Edition

(Paperback, 2nd edition)

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Why does democracy-as a word and as an idea-loom so large in the political imagination, though it has so often been misused and misunderstood Setting the People Free starts by tracing the roots of democracy from an improvised remedy for a local Greek difficulty 2,500 years ago, through its near extinction, to its rebirth amid the struggles of the French Revolution. Celebrated political theorist John Dunn then charts the slow but insistent metamorphosis of democracy over the next 150 years and its apparently overwhelming triumph since 1945. He examines the differences and the extraordinary continuities that modern democratic states share with their Greek antecedents and explains why democracy evokes intellectual and moral scorn for some, and vital allegiance from others. Now with a new preface and conclusion that ground this landmark work firmly in the present, Setting the People Free is a unique and brilliant account of an extraordinary idea.

Reviews

John Dunns book is much more than a history of democratic ideas. [It is] among the most original and thought-provoking books on politics to have been published in England for many years, written in a spare, incisive English style which at its best is worthy of Hobbes.Jonathan Sumption, Spectator
A marvellously rich book.David Marquand, New Statesman
Stimulating and deft. An impressive and interesting book.Andrew Roberts, Daily Telegraph
John Dunn has given us a rare thing: an intellectually aristocratic book written for a profoundly democratic age.Sunil Khilnani, Financial Times
Dunn wears his erudition lightly and writes clearly and freshly about some of politics most venerable questions. Blows a gust of fresh air through the cobwebbed byways of political thought.John Gray, Independent

Author Bio

John Dunn is professor emeritus of political theory at Kings College, University of Cambridge.