Re-imagining Democracy in the Age of Revolutions

Abstract

This book charts a transformation in how people thought about democracy in the North Atlantic region in the years between the American Revolution and the revolutions of 1848. In the mid-eighteenth century, ‘democracy’ was a word known only to literate publics; it was associated primarily with the ancient world, and had negative connotations: democracies were conceived to be unstable, warlike, and prone to mutate into despotisms. By the mid-nineteenth century, by contrast, democracy had become an important category for thinking about the modern world, and had passed into general use – though it was still not necessarily an approving term; in fact, there was much debate about whether democracy could achieve robust institutional form in advanced societies. In this book, an international cast of contributors shows how common trends worked through in four settings: the United States, France, Britain and Ireland, with special attention to the eras of the 1789 and 1848 revolutions. It is argued that ‘modern democracy’ was not invented in one place and then diffused elsewhere, but instead was the subject of parallel re-imaginings, as ancient ideas and examples were selectively invoked and reworked for modern use in different ways in different environments. The book significantly enhances our understanding of the diversity and complexity of our democratic inheritance