"Today, democracy is the world's only broadly accepted political system, and yet it has become synonymous with disappointment and crisis. How did it come to this? In [this book], James Miller, author of the classic history of 1960s protest Democracy Is in the Streets, offers a lively, surprising, and urgent history of the democratic idea from its first stirrings to the present. A profound reckoning with a paradoxical phenomenon--the struggle of human beings to govern themselves--Miller's book shows how democracy has always been rife with inner tensions. In ancient Athens, citizens preferred to choose leaders by lottery and regarded elections as undemocratic--but had no problem excluding most residents from political power. The French revolutionaries sought to incarnate the popular will, but many of them came to see the people as the enemy. And in the United States, the franchise would be extended to some even as it was taken from others. Amid the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century, communists, liberals, and nationalists all sought to claim the ideals of democracy for themselves--even as they manifestly failed to realize them. Ranging from the theaters of Athens to the tents of Occupy Wall Street, [this book] combines an authoritative history of ideas with colorful portraits of democracy's champions and antagonists, from Pericles and Plato, to Rousseau and Robespierre, to Walt Whitman, Rosa Luxemburg, and Donald Trump. Can Democracy Work? is an entertaining and insightful guide to our most cherished--and vexed--ideal."--Dust jacket.