Abstract

Although no other topic in political thought has attracted the attention of so many as the subject of democracy, Mr. Heald has thought that a re-evaluation in the light of rapidly changing social conditions is greatly overdue, since many of its underlying assumptions are derived from 18th and early 19th century theory. The result is a book in which the character of the democratic idea, and its relation to ethics are carefully analysed, and the development of democratic theory from the Greeks down to our own time—a textbook rather than an original work.