It’s a bit pricey for most peo­ple I know, but if you’re in a posi­tion to rec­om­mend it to a library, fac­ul­ty, or insti­tu­tion, do so. In addi­tion to chap­ters by myself and old friend Steven Muhlberg­er, the con­trib­u­tors are Ben­jamin Isakhan, Stephen Stock­well, John Keane, Laris­sa Behrendt, Pauline Keat­ing, Mohamad Abdal­la & Hal­im Rane, Patri­cia Pires Boul­hosa, Luisa Gan­dol­fo, I.Kissa, and P.Fry.

Pre-orders in Cana­da from Chap­ters-Indi­go online (avail­able April 12)

in the U.S.A from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble (avail­able April 12)

in the U.K. and Europe from Amazon.uk (avail­able Feb­ru­ary 11)

in Aus­tralia from EmporiumBooks.com.au (avail­able March 11)

“The thought-pro­vok­ing essays gath­ered in The Secret His­to­ry of Democ­ra­cy pro­vide con­vinc­ing evi­dence that demo­c­ra­t­ic mech­a­nisms have been invent­ed many times and in many places, includ­ing times and places neglect­ed in com­mon accounts. This col­lec­tion is a sober­ing reminder that demo­c­ra­t­ic prac­tices have often been suc­ceed­ed by some­thing else. But one also takes away a sense of the dynam­ic char­ac­ter of demo­c­ra­t­ic his­to­ry and the end­less diver­si­ty of prac­tices with some rea­son­able claim to embody demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples. As grow­ing num­bers won­der about what sorts of polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions make sense in the face of the enor­mous prob­lems con­fronting the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry, this demon­stra­tion of the long human his­to­ry of polit­i­cal cre­ativ­i­ty gives some rea­son for hope.”
-John Markoff

“A fas­ci­nat­ing, thought-pro­vok­ing and well-informed sur­vey of lit­tle-known “roots of democ­ra­cy” and “pro­to-demo­c­ra­t­ic” sys­tems and move­ments across the globe , from ancient and “prim­i­tive” to mod­ern soci­eties. An eye-open­er that forces us to dif­fer­en­ti­ate more care­ful­ly and to rethink the his­to­ry of democracy.”
- Kurt Raaflaub

“This excit­ing book sure­ly enlivens and enrich­es our debate on democ­ra­cy and its future by dig­ging afresh oft-for­got­ten, yet most enlight­en­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic expe­ri­ences found in human history. ”
- Takashi Inoguchi