The roots of democracy stretch back beyond Athens to Syria- Mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent, where citizens' assemblies held privilege and power to account over 3,000 years before the French Revolution. In this timely and illuminating new global history, John Keane gets to the heart of a complex, ever-evolving ideal. Today, American-style democracy may appear to be in decline, but Keane shows that this isn't the whole story. Democracy has a long, eventful past. Does it have a future?