"Brennan has a bright, pugilistic style, and he takes a sportsman's pleasure in upsetting pieties and demolishing weak logic."--Caleb Crain, New Yorker
"The book makes compelling reading for what is typically a dry area of discourse. This is theory that skips, rather than plods."--Molly Sauter, Los Angeles Times
"Lucidly written in provocative, sometimes brash tones, it is especially useful for the undergraduate classroom."--Choice
"Jason Brennan is a marvel: a brilliant philosopher who scrupulously studies the facts before he moralizes. In Against Democracy, his elegant method leads to the contrarian conclusion that democratic participation prompts human beings to forget common sense and common decency. Voting does not ennoble us; it tests the virtue of the best, and brings out the worst in the rest."--Bryan Caplan, author of The Myth of the Rational Voter
"The great temptation of political philosophy is to sacralize politics, and we urgently need work that teaches us not to succumb. In this valuable and bracing book, Jason Brennan challenges comfortable pieties and debunks familiar myths about political life in general and democratic rule in particular. I expect that most readers will find plenty with which to disagree--I certainly do--but also that most will find Brennan's arguments unsettlingly difficult to resist with certainty."--Jacob T. Levy, McGill University
"Against Democracy makes a useful set of challenges to both conventional wisdom and dominant trends in political philosophy and political theory, particularly democratic theory. Engagingly written, it is a lively and entertaining read."--Alexander Guerrero, University of Pennsylvania
"Important."--Ilya Somin, Washington Post Volokh Conspiracy
"A brash, well-argued diatribe against the democratic system. There is much to mull over in this brazen stab at the American electoral process. . . . Sure to cause howls of disagreement, but in the current toxic partisan climate, Brennan's polemic is as worth weighing as any other."--Kirkus
One of Zócalo’s 10 Favorite Books of 2016
"Challenging and insightful."--Alexander William Salter, Public Choice
"Meticulous [and] crisply written."--Tom Clark, Prospect
"Among the best works in political philosophy in recent memory."--Zachary Woodman, Students for Liberty
"Against Democracy seems scarily prescient today. Writing well before the twin shocks of the Brexit and the U.S. elections, the Georgetown political scientist makes a powerful case that popular democracy can be dangerous--and, provocatively, that irrational and incompetent voters should be excluded from democratic decision-making. The case for elitism in governance never read so well."--Zocalo Public Square
