The Problem of Democracy: The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality
- ISBN-10
- 0525557520
- ISBN-13
- 9780525557524
- Series
- The Problem of Democracy
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 576
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2020-04-14
- Publisher
- Penguin Books
- Authors
- Andrew Burstein, Nancy Isenberg
Description
"Told with authority and style. . . Crisply summarizing the Adamses' legacy, the authors stress principle over partisanship."--The Wall Street Journal How the father and son presidents foresaw the rise of the cult of personality and fought those who sought to abuse the weaknesses inherent in our democracy. Until now, no one has properly dissected the intertwined lives of the second and sixth (father and son) presidents. John and John Quincy Adams were brilliant, prickly politicians and arguably the most independently minded among leaders of the founding generation. Distrustful of blind allegiance to a political party, they brought a healthy skepticism of a brand-new system of government to the country's first 50 years. They were unpopular for their fears of the potential for demagoguery lurking in democracy, and--in a twist that predicted the turn of twenty-first century politics--they warned against, but were unable to stop, the seductive appeal of political celebrities Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. In a bold recasting of the Adamses' historical roles, The Problem of Democracy is a major critique of the ways in which their prophetic warnings have been systematically ignored over the centuries. It's also an intimate family drama that brings out the torment and personal hurt caused by the gritty conduct of early American politics. Burstein and Isenberg make sense of the presidents' somewhat iconoclastic, highly creative engagement with America's political and social realities. By taking the temperature of American democracy, from its heated origins through multiple upheavals, the authors reveal the dangers and weaknesses that have been present since the beginning. They provide a clear-eyed look at a decoy democracy that masks the reality of elite rule while remaining open, since the days of George Washington, to a very undemocratic result in the formation of a cult surrounding the person of an elected leader.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2023-01-19
- 313 pages
- Paperback
- Oxford University Press
-
- 2019-04-16
- 576 pages
- Ebook
- Penguin
Similar books
-
The Green Book: The Solution to the Problem of Democracy, the Solution to the Economic Problem, the Social Basis of...
By Muammar QaddafiRepublished in a new translation, The Green Book provides fresh insight into the thinking of Muammar Al Gathafi and his Third Universal Theory for a new democratic society.
-
The Problem of Democracy in the Age of Slavery: Garrisonian Abolitionists and Transatlantic Reform
By W. Caleb McDanielLewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (rpt., Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995). 12. Aileen S. Kraditor, Means and Ends, 39–77; Hansen, Strained Sisterhood; Kathryn Kish ...
-
The Problem of Democracy
By Alain de BenoistThe first of de Benoist's book-length political works to appear in English shows that the problem with democracy is the current understanding of the term, which reduces people to little more than cogs in a machine over which they have no ...
-
Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech
By Cass R. SunsteinThis book is a must read for anyone who wants to think seriously about the free speech issues facing this generation. -- Akhil Amar, Southmayd Professor, Yale Law School This is an important book.
-
Democracy as Problem Solving: Civic Capacity in Communities Across the Globe
By Xavier de Souza BriggsCivic Capacity in Communities Across the Globe Xavier De Souza Briggs. © 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including ...
-
Against Democracy: New Preface
By Jason BrennanFor versions of this argument, see Rousseau 1997; Gould 1988,45–85. Carol Gould argues that democracy is necessary for the good of autonomous self-government and goes on to assert that citizens are entitled to democracy. 18.
-
The Problem of Democracy in Postwar Europe: Political Actors and the Formation of the Postwar Model of Democracy in France,...
By Pepijn CorduwenerThe current perception of democratic crisis in Western Europe gives a renewed urgency to a new perspective on the way democracy was reconstructed after World War II and the principles that underpinned its postwar transformation.
-
Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation, and What We Can Do About It
By Stephen MacedoThis important new book explores the problem of America's decreasing involvement in its own affairs. D emocracy at Risk reveals the dangers of civic disengagement for the future of representative democracy.
-
The Green Book: The Solution of the Problem of Democracy
By Muammar GaddafiLibya's former premier Muammar Gaddafi's Green Book, describes and explains following subjects.
-
Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization
By Thomas Carothers, Andrew O'DonohueTimely, rigorous, and accessible, this book is of compelling interest to civic activists, political actors, scholars, and ordinary citizens in societies beset by increasingly rancorous partisanship.