American political scientists do not need to be told that James Bryce's work is one of the most important ever written on the principles and practice of democratic government. More than a century has passed since his masterly description and appreciation of the American Commonwealth put him at the head of all students of American government and politics. He has served as a member of three British cabinets, he has been the British ambassador to the United States, and he has traveled to all quarters of the globe, always keenly interested in the institutions of the lands he visited. Now he embodies the ripest fruits of these years of travel and study in two stout volumes. After some introductory considerations applicable to democratic government in general, he proceeds to a detailed comparison of the working of democracy in various countries, chiefly France, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, and concludes with some general observations and reflections on the present and future of democratic government. This is volume one out of two.

The first aim of this text book is to define and examine the principle concepts that are employed when people write or argue about modern democratic politics, to discuss the implications of using the concepts in this way or that, and to examine the normative theories associated with the concepts. A second purpose is to summarise methods of analysis used by political scientists and to discuss the controversies that have arisen about these methods, with particular reference to attempts to create a science of politics.

Ancient and Modern Democracy is a comprehensive account of Athenian democracy as a subject of criticism, admiration and scholarly debate for 2,500 years, covering the features of Athenian democracy, its importance for the English, American and French revolutions and for the debates on democracy and political liberty from the nineteenth century to the present. Discussions were always in the context of contemporary constitutional problems. Time and again they made a connection with a long-established tradition, involving both dialogue with ancient sources and with earlier phases of the reception of Antiquity. They refer either to a common cultural legacy or to specific national traditions; they often involve a mixture of political and scholarly arguments. This book elucidates the complexity of considering and constructing systems of popular self-rule.

Examines the economic, social, cultural, as well as purely political threats to democracy in the light of current knowledge.

Robert Dahl's Preface helped launch democratic theory fifty years ago as a new area of study in political science, and it remains the standard introduction to the field. Exploring problems that had been left unsolved by traditional thought on democracy, Dahl here examines two influential models--the Madisonian, which represents prevailing American doctrine, and its recurring challenger, populist theory--arguing that they do not accurately portray how modern democracies operate. He then constructs a model more consistent with how contemporary democracies actually function, and, in doing so, develops some original views of popular sovereignty and the American constitutional system.

Richard Tuck traces the history of the distinction between sovereignty and government and its relevance to the development of democratic thought. Tuck shows that this was a central issue in the political debates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and provides a new interpretation of the political thought of Bodin, Hobbes and Rousseau. Integrating legal theory and the history of political thought, he also provides one of the first modern histories of the constitutional referendum, and shows the importance of the United States in the history of the referendum. The book derives from the John Robert Seeley Lectures delivered by Richard Tuck at the University of Cambridge in 2012, and will appeal to students and scholars of the history of ideas, political theory and political philosophy.

For the Western world as a whole, the period from about 1760 to 1800 was the great revolutionary era in which the outlines of the modern democratic state came into being. It is the thesis of this major work that the American, French, and Polish revolutions, and the movements for political change in Britain, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, and other countries, although each distinctive in its way, were all manifestations of recognizably similar political ideas, needs, and conflicts. Volume 1 of this distinguished two-volume work, "The Challenge," received critical accolades throughout the world. It was the winner of the Bancroft Prize in 1960 and was called "one of the classic works of American historical scholarship" (Key Reporter) and a book which "will enlarge and clarify our understanding of modern Western history. It will re-emphasize the strength and vitality of the roots that supported the growth of democracy in the Old and New Worlds" (New York Times). "Occasionally a historical work appears which, by synthesis of much previous specialized work and by intelligent reflection upon the whole, makes events of the past click into a new pattern and assume fresh meaning. Professor Palmer's book is such a work" (American Historical Review). "The Challenge" took the story to the eve of the French Revolutionary wars; Volume 2, "The Struggle" continues the account to 1800.