The worst possible form of government

Roger Osborne's “Of the People, By the People” does indeed give a sweeping overview of the history of democracy, so sweeping in fact, that the book becomes a kind of mini-history of the world. Unfortunately, this is mostly negative. It's as if the actual democracy gets lost somewhere in between the Battle of Naseby and the independence of India, or was it one of the Mexican revolutions? The book is desperately crying out for some kind of synthesis or punch line, but none seems to be forthcoming.

But yes, here and there Osborne does say a few interesting things. He boldly points out that there is no progress or teleology involved in the historical rise of democracy. While a concrete democracy may progress, “democracy” as such doesn't. It has to be continually reinvented and is usually an uneasy compromise between different factions or groups. Thus, the American constitution isn't a piece of holy writ or a text with esoteric significance, but a pragmatic compromise which turned out to be the most workable alternative at the time. Osborne believes that ancient Athens had one of the best democracies ever invented, yet his book only contains a short chapter on the ancient world. He traces modern democracy to the United Netherlands, the New Model Army and the influence of Calvinism (the Geneva Bible).

If the author has any conclusions to offer, it's essentially that it's up to the common man to continually rejuvenate and uphold democracy, that democracy is the only system which admits that humans are complex rather than simple, and that democracies can't be imposed from without. In other words, democracy is the worst system of government…except for all the others!

What a shame it took 300+ tedious pages about everything under the sun to tell us *that*…

Two and a half stars.