Publisher's Synopsis
When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote his seminal work Democracy in America (1835), he regarded democracy as the future of the West. Subsequent events seem to confirm his prescience. But a closer look at the history of democracy from the 1830s down to the present reveals a far more complicated picture. In fact, author Chilton Williamson Jr. concludes, the future appears rather unpromising for democratic institutions around the world.
