Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea from Ancient Athens to Our World | Mechanics' Institute

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Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea from Ancient Athens to Our World
Author James Miller in conversation with journalist Deirdre English

James Miller, the 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. As he shows, democracy has always been rife with inner tensions. The ancient Greeks preferred to choose leaders by lottery and regarded elections inherently corrupt and undemocratic. Amid the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century, communists, liberals, and nationalists all sought to claim the ideals of democracy for themselves – even as they manifestly failed to realize them.

 

James Miller is a professor of politics and liberal studies at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche; Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977; and Democracy Is in the Streets: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago.

 

Deirdre English is the former Editor-in-Chief of Mother Jones magazine where she worked for eight years, ending in 1986. She has written and edited work on a wide array of subjects related to investigative reporting, cultural politics, gender studies, and public policy. She has contributed articles, commentaries and reviews to Mother Jones magazine, The Nation, and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications, and to public radio and television. She is currently a Lecturer at the U. C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

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