Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"A New Yorker Best Book We've Read This Year"
"Longlisted for the Runciman Award, Anglo-Hellenic League"
"Praising the people who agree with you is the easy part of democratic government. The hard part is building a superintending architecture that wins the consent even of those you hate. [Manville and Ober] recognize this truth, and, indeed, build a whole theory of democracy around it. . . . Persuasive."
---Adam Gopnik, New Yorker"Manville and Ober urge defenders of liberal democracy to take the long view. The book provides fascinating portraits of four great breakthroughs in citizen self-rule. . . . [They] argue, the great democracies survived because they forged and maintained a 'civic bargain,' a political pact about who is a citizen, how decisions are made, and the distribution of responsibilities and entitlements."
---G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs"Well-written and insightful. . . a veritable treasure trove for anyone who wants to understand the events leading up to our experiment in self-government, the challenges encountered along the way (human nature being what it is), and the patterns that are most likely to be repeated in the future."
---J. Bradford Delong, Project Syndicate"Even with all that seems discouraging in our own time, Americans should take heart that we the people can make a difference and maintain the continuity of our experiment. . . . Manville and Ober] offer a useful and accessible framework for talking about democracy—in a time when we are all too accustomed to speaking past one another on fundamental matters of civic life."
---Hans Zeiger, American Purpose
