Forged Through Fire
Peace, many would agree, is a goal that democratic nations should strive to achieve. But is democracy, in fact, dependent on war to survive? Having spent their celebrated careers exploring this provocative question, John Ferejohn and Frances McCall Rosenbluth trace the surprising ways in which governments have mobilized armies since antiquity, discovering that our modern form of democracy not only evolved in a brutally competitive environment but also quickly disintegrated when the powerful elite no longer needed their citizenry to defend against existential threats. Bringing to vivid life the major battles that shaped our current political landscape, the authors begin with the fierce warrior states of Athens and the Roman Republic. While these experiments in “mixed government” would serve as a basis…
$39.95
December 6, 2016
John Ferejohn is the Samuel Tilden Professor of Law at New York University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as the American Academy of Sciences. He is the author of Pork Barrel Politics and the coauthor of The Personal Vote and A Republic of Statutes.
Frances McCall Rosenbluth is the Damon Wells Professor of Political Science at Yale University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the author of Financial Politics in Contemporary Japan and the coauthor of Japan’s Political Marketplace; The Politics of Oligarchy: Institutional Choice in Imperial Japan; Women, Work, and Power; and Japan Transformed.
