Adventures in Democracy

<b>Erica Benner </b>is a political philosopher who has taught at Oxford University the London School of Economics and Yale. She is the author of <i>Be Like the Fox</i> which was selected as one of <i>The Guardian</i>'s Best Books of 2017 and shortlisted for the 2018 Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography. Erica was born in Japan and currently lives in Berlin. <p>In a hypercompetitive world obsessed with rankings super-wealth and greatness how can we live up to democratic ideals of equality?<br><br>Erica Benner has spent a lifetime thinking about these questions from different angles in different countries - from postwar Japan where democracy was imposed on a defeated country to post-communist Poland with sudden gaps of wealth and security and the US and South Africa with their legacies of slavery and racism.<br><br><i>Adventures in Democracy</i> draws on her experiences and the deep history of democracies - in ancient Rome and Athens the American and French revolutions and Renaissance Florence - to offer an unflinching portrait of modern democracy. To salvage democratic institutions and ideals Benner argues we need to pay more attention to inequalities and struggles for power among citizens. Probing myths of heroic triumph over tyranny and inexorable progress towards equality she reveals the vulnerabilities of people power inviting us to consider why democracy is worth fighting for and the role each citizen must play.</p> Praise for <i>Be Like the Fox</i> A ripping read . . . fascinating charming enjoyably unorthodox Lively compulsively readable fluently written and unshowily erudite A gripping portrait of a brilliant political thinker who understood the dangers of authoritarianism and looked for ways to curb them even though independent speech had become impossible.