Talking Democracy

“A fine scholarly volume, Talking Democracy is a salutary corrective to any conception of political theorizing as something of a straightforwardly progressive enterprise which has long ago surpassed the wisdom of the ancients, who remain only to be caricatured or pillaged. The editors accomplish this by assembling a diverse collection of essays which draw upon pre-modern political thought in order to assess the idea of deliberative democracy. The contributors illuminate the shortcomings of that present-day endeavor to design the best regime by retrieving an understanding of deliberative practices and democratic realities which deliberative democratic theory forgets or abstracts away from, whether neglectfully or willfully. Above all, the book demonstrates the wrong-headedness of imagining the possibility and supposing the desirability of liberating deliberation from rhetorical persuasion.”

—Travis D. Smith Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR)

“This is an excellent volume, not only because the essays recover forgotten sources of profound reflection on rhetoric and the true nature of democratic deliberation, but also because the contributors display a remarkable flexibility in bringing historical perspectives to bear on contemporary issues. Perhaps the greatest virtue of this volume is the service it does in bridging the divide within political theory between the study of the history of political thought and contemporary attempts to construct new theoretical models. The contributors have not merely argued that even premodern sources can shed light on questions central to political theory today—they have demonstrated it.”

—Devin Stauffer Perspectives on Politics