Twenty-First Century Democratic Renaissance

Starting from Ancient Greece and the writings of Thucydides and Plato, Professor Harris examines the major concepts of democracy developed by notable thinkers from Plato through Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx and on to contemporary thought. By contrast with this democratic tradition, Harris advances a powerful analysis of the tradition that has attempted to subvert the legitimacy of democracy, beginning with Nazi legal theorist, Carl Schmidt, down through Joseph Schumpeter, Vilfredo Pareto, Friedrich von Hayek, Hans Morgenthau, and Benjamin Barber. He shows the relationship between the flawed thinking of this tradition and the work of Leo Strauss, the darling of today's Neoconservatives who for the past decade have wreaked such havoc in Washington, D.C. and the world. Harris concludes by pointing to the urgent necessity for a world federal process including a world constitution as the rational, effective, secure and lawful means by which the people and nations of the world can ensure true and enduring world democracy.