Adventures in democracy the turbulent world of people power

Adventures in democracy: the turbulent world of people power


How can we hold the powerful to account and advance democracy in an age of inequality and uncertainty?

Join us for a thought-provoking evening with Erica Benner, political philosopher and author of
Adventures in Democracy: The Turbulent World of People Power
(2024).

Professor Benner will explore democracy's uneasy relationship with power and inequality, focusing on the challenges of concentrated wealth, elite power, and global hegemony. Drawing connections to pressing current events—including debates sparked by the US election and recent global developments—she examines how self-governing societies throughout history, from Ancient Greece to Renaissance Florence, have navigated struggles for greater democratic power.

This timely discussion invites us to reflect on the enduring value of democracy and the roles we all must play in shaping its future.


Meet our speaker and chair


Erica Benner is a political philosopher and historian of ideas. Born in Tokyo, she grew up in Japan and the UK. After earning her D.Phil from Oxford, she taught at Warsaw University and the Polish Academy of Sciences, Oxford Universi

















Politics & International AffairsPolitical Theory & IdeologyWorld PoliticsDiplomacy & International Relations

ADVENTURES IN DEMOCRACY: THE TURBULENT WORLD OF PEOPLE POWER

ERICA BENNER

1.690 Lekë
'Sparkling . . . a page-turner full of wit, original insight and unassuming erudition' Guardian'Enjoyable vitality' The Times'Highly stimulating . . . wonderfully readable . . . her analysis of ...


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Adventures in Democracy by Erica Benner review – many men, many minds


Will not many men have many minds?” Abigail Adams asked her husband in a letter in November 1775. The American colonies were at war with Britain and founding father John Adams was in Philadelphia, making the case for independence and a new form of self-government. “I wish I knew what mighty things were fabricating,” she wrote. Not being there when notions of people power were being debated was agony for the future president’s most trusted adviser. What if democracy didn’t prove to be any less troublesome than monarchy? “I am more and more convinced,” she warned, “that man is a dangerous creature, and that power whether vested in many or a few is ever grasping.”

On 4 July the following year, the Declaration of Independence, which John Adams had helped draft, made the United States the first modern democracy. Nearly 250 years later, much of the western world continues to see democracy as something that goes hand in hand with progress.

Is a form of government based on endless debates among misinformed citizens really up to the challenge?

But “binding democracy to progress can encourage a dangerous hubris”, ar

Adventures In Democracy



The Turbulent World of People Power

by Erica Benner




'There's no simple way to measure how strong a democracy is, or how weak.'

Democracy is a living, breathing thing and Erica Benner has spent a lifetime thinking about the role ordinary citizens play in keeping it alive- from her childhood in post-war Japan, where democracy was imposed on a defeated country, to working in post-communist Poland, with its sudden gaps of wealth and security. This book draws on her experiences and the deep history of self-ruling peoples - going back to ancient Greece, the French revolution and Renaissance Florence - to rethink some of the toughest questions that we face today.

What do democratic ideals of equality mean in a world obsessed with competition, wealth, and greatness? How can we hold the powerful to account? Can we find enough common ground to keep sharing democratic power in the future? Challenging well-worn myths of heroic triumph over tyranny, Benner reveals the inescapable vulnerabilities of people power, inviting us to consider why democracy is worth fighting for and the role each of us must play.


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Publisher
Penguin Publishing Group