Elshtain, Jean Berthke : University of Chicago

Jean Bethke Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Ethics at the University of Chicago. Her previous books include Women and War; Public Man, Private Woman; and Power Trips and Other Journeys.

"Wise, humane, and profoundly reflective."

--New York Times Book Review

"Seldom have the sources of democracy and its discontents been described with such philosophical passion and insight."

--Kirkus Reviews

"Elshtain's is a brilliant voice calling us away from cynicism and toward citizenship. In her hands democracy is not a tired word from a dusty civics book but a moral challenge, an achievable ideal, and a source of hope."

--E. J. Dionne Jr. Author of Why Americans Hate Politics

"A powerful moral statement about the meaning of democracy."

--Robert Coles

Perseus Press Web Site, November, 2000

A "wise, humane, and profoundly reflective" (John Gray, front page, New York Times Book Review) meditation on democracy by one of the country's premier thinkers.

"Wise, humane, and profoundly reflective."

"Elshtain's is a brilliant voice calling us away from cynicism and toward citizenship. In her hands democracy is not a tired word from a dusty civis book but a moral challenge, an achievable ideal, and a source of hope."

"A powerful moral statement about the meaning of democracy."

Even as Russia and the other former Soviet republics struggle to redefine themselves in democratic terms, our own democracy is faltering, not flourishing. We confront one another as aggrieved groups rather than as free citizens. Cynicism, boredom, apathy, despair, violence - these have become coin of the civic realm. They are dark signs of the times and a warning that democracy may not be up to the task of satisfying the yearnings it unleashes - yearnings for freedom, fairness, and equality. In this timely, thought-provoking book, one of America's leading political philosophers and public intellectuals questions whether democracy will prove sufficiently robust and resilient to survive the century. Beginning with a catalogue of our discontents, Jean Bethke Elshtain asks what has gone wrong and why. She draws on examples from America and other parts of the world as she explores the politics of race, ethnicity, and gender identity - controversial, and essential, political issues of our day. Insisting that there is much to cherish in our democratic traditions, she concludes that democracy involves a permanent clash between conservatism and progressive change. Elshtain distinguishes her own position from those of both the Left and the Right, demonstrating why she has been called one of our most interesting and independent civic thinkers. Responding to critics of democracy, ancient and modern, Elshtain urges us to have the courage of our most authentic democratic convictions. We need, she insists, both hope and a sense of reality. Writing her book for citizens, not experts, Elshtain aims to open up a dialogue and to move us beyond sterile sectarian disputes. Democracy on Trial is a book of and for these times, but one that both links us to the past and looks forward to a brave democratic future, for ourselves and our posterity. Written in what one critic has called "Elshtain's bold, idiosyncratic style," this book cannot be pigeonholed ideologically.