In an age of fake news and half-truths, the radical potential of democracy is more important than ever, as this nimble, illuminating history by a celebrated political theorist reveals.

From its beginnings in Syria-Mesopotamia – and not Athens – to its role in fomenting revolutionary fervour in France and America, democracy has subverted fixed ways of deciding who should enjoy power and privilege, and why. For democracy encourages people to do something radical – to come together as equals, to determine their own lives and futures.

In this vigorous, illuminating history, acclaimed political thinker John Keane traces its byzantine history, from the age of assembly democracy in Athens, to European-inspired electoral democracy and the birth of representative government, to our age of monitory democracy. He gives new reasons why democracy is a precious global ideal. As the world has come to be shaped by democracy, it has grown more worldly – American-style liberal democracy is giving way to regional varieties with a local character in places such as Taiwan, India, Senegal and South Africa.

In an age of crisis, we need the radical potential of democracy more than ever. Does it have a future, or will the demagogues and despots win? We are about to find out.

‘John Keane takes the ideals, practices, triumphs and failures of democracies and braids them together into something timely, lyrical and fresh. For cynics and idealists alike, this couldn’t have come at a better time.’ —Scott Ludlam

Contents:

Part I: Assembly Democracy
Part II: Electoral Democracy
Part III: Monitory Democracy

https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/shortest-history-democracy

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Born in southern Australia, John Keane is Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney. He first studied Politics, Government and History at the University of Adelaide, winning the Tinline Prize for a First Class Honours with Highest Distinction (1971). He won a Commonwealth Fellowship to study at the University of Toronto, where in the fields of philosophy and political economy he was awarded a doctorate and mentored and supervised by C.B. Macpherson. He later held a post-doctoral fellowship at King’s College, at the University of Cambridge, where he worked closely with Anthony Giddens, Quentin Skinner and other leading scholars.

Well before the European revolutions of 1989, John Keane first came to public prominence as a theorist and defender of ‘civil society’ and the democratic opposition in central-eastern Europe. Throughout the 1980s, he contributed extensively to the programme of ‘flying university’ apartment seminars in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. His political and scholarly writing during that period was published under the pen name Erica Blair. His Times Literary Supplement series of 18th-century-style dialogues with prominent underground human rights figures such as Adam Michnik and György Konrád was read widely and translated into many languages. He arranged and edited Václav Havel’s first book in English, The Power of the Powerless (1985). In the spring of 1989, just before the revolutions that shook central-eastern Europe, he founded the world’s first democracy research institute, the London-based Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD). He later directed the Sydney Democracy Network, a network of researchers, activists and policy makers concerned with the future of democracy and, most recently, designed and launched the global platform Democracy Lighthouse. For over two decades, he held the position of Distinguished Research Professor at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), one of Europe’s largest and most respected social science research institutions.

John Keane is renowned globally for his creative thinking about politics, history, media and democracy, and is the author of many distinguished books including the best-selling Tom Paine: A Political Life (1995), Reflections on Violence (1996), Václav Havel: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts (1999), The Life and Death of Democracy (2009), which was short-listed for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, Democracy and Media Decadence (2013), When Trees Fall, Monkeys Scatter (2017), Power and Humility (2018) and The New Despotism (2020). His books have been translated into more than three dozen languages, and his interviews and other contributions have been published on global platforms such as The New York Times, Al Jazeera, the Times Literary Supplement, Financial Times, The Guardian, Die Zeit, Hindustan Times and the South China Morning Post. His experimental ‘Democracy Field Notes’ series on the Melbourne-based The Conversation has attracted well over one million readers. He has been described by various publications as ‘one of the most listened to political thinkers today’ and ranked by El País (Madrid) as ‘one of the greatest theorists of political systems’. During the years he lived in Britain, The Times of London described him as among the country’s leading political thinkers and writers whose work has ‘world-wide importance’. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) speaks of him as ‘one of Australia’s great intellectual exports’.

John Keane was recently nominated for the Balzan Prize (Italy) and the Holberg Prize (Norway) for outstanding global contributions to the human sciences. His latest books are The Shortest History of Democracy (2022), which is so far published in more than a dozen languages, China’s Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century (2024), and Thinking About Democracy in Turbulent Times: Sorbonne Lectures (2025).

Keeping Tabs on Power and a discussion of the reception of The Life and Death of Democracy provide a brief introduction to John Keane’s life and writings.

https://www.johnkeane.net/bio/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

SEE ALSO: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-thinking-about-democracy-in-turbulent-times.html