"About a decade ago, I found myself alone for dinner one evening in Buenos Aires, the city of my birth. I had a lecture to give the next day and I had reserved the time alone to prepare over dinner in a typical neighborhood restaurant. Such a "boliche," in the local porteño slang, was a comfortable setting to have a meal. I sat down with typical Argentine fare and the inescapable good wine and turned to my lecture materials. I soon found myself distracted...

Presents excerpts from Tocqueville's treatise, written in 1834, about the advantages and pitfalls of democracy.

"Donald Trump's presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we'd be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang--in a revolution or military coup--but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions,...

Outlines how the American economic system is failing, with increasing income inequality and a shrinking middle class, and reveals how a market designed for broad prosperity can reverse the trend toward diminished opportunity.

"The complete history of democracy, its champions, and its detractors-from the assemblies of ancient Mesopotamia to present perils"-- Provided by publisher.

The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. The most affluent people emerged from capitalism's triumph in the Cold War to loot the peace, depriving governments of the resources needed to serve their people, and leaving them tragically unprepared for the worst pandemic in a century. Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning...

A bold guide to how we must re-envision citizenship if American democracy is to survive The United States faces dangerous threats from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, terrorists, climate change, and future pandemics, but the greatest peril to the country comes not from abroad but from within, from none other than ourselves. The question facing us is whether we are prepared to do what is necessary to save our democracy. The Bill of Obligations is...

"Running water. Electricity. Antibiotics. Dentistry. Air conditioning. Democracy. The rule of law. Such things are not only remarkably new inventions in human history, they are all alien to humanity's natural habitat. Here is what is natural: poverty, hunger, violence, tribal hatred, and an early death. If the Garden of Eden existed, it was a slum. Only once in the last 250,000 years did humans lift themselves out of their natural environment of poverty....

"One of BBC History Magazine's Best Books of 2020" David Stasavage is dean for the social sciences and Julius Silver Professor of Politics at New York University. His books include Taxing the Rich and States of Credit (both Princeton). Twitter @stasavage "One of the most important books on political regimes written in a generation."-Steven Levitsky, New York Times–bestselling author of How Democracies Die A new understanding of how and why early...