Democracy in Europe: A History of an Ideoloy

This history traces the development of democracy in Europe from its origins in ancient Greece up to the present day.

• Considers all the major watersheds in the development of democracy in modern Europe.
  
• Describes the rediscovery of Ancient Greek political ideals by intellectuals at the end of the eighteenth century.
  
• Examines the twenty-year crisis from 1789 to 1815, when the repercussions of revolution in France were felt across the European continent.
  
• Explains how events in France led to the explosion of democratic movements between 1830 and 1848.
  
• Compares the different manifestations of democracy within Eastern and Western Europe during the latter half of the nineteenth century.
  
• Considers fascism and its consequences for democracy in Europe during the twentieth century.
  
• Demonstrates how in the recent past democracy itself has become the object of ideological battles.

Luciano Canfora is Professor of Classical Philology at Bari University, Italy. His previous publications include The Ideology of Classicism (1980), The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World (1989) and Julius Caesar: The People’s Dictator (2004). He is the editor of Quaderni di Storia, Italy’s premier history journal.