---
product_id: 98348932
title: "How Democracies Die: The International Bestseller: What History Reveals About Our Future Paperback – 3 Jan. 2019"
brand: "steven levitskydaniel ziblatt"
price: "A$36"
currency: AUD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 6
url: https://www.desertcart.com.au/products/98348932-how-democracies-die-the-international-bestseller-what-history-reveals-about
store_origin: AU
region: Australia
---

# How Democracies Die: The International Bestseller: What History Reveals About Our Future Paperback – 3 Jan. 2019

**Brand:** steven levitskydaniel ziblatt
**Price:** A$36
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** How Democracies Die: The International Bestseller: What History Reveals About Our Future Paperback – 3 Jan. 2019 by steven levitskydaniel ziblatt
- **How much does it cost?** A$36 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.au](https://www.desertcart.com.au/products/98348932-how-democracies-die-the-international-bestseller-what-history-reveals-about)

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An excellent book, calm, analytical, unhysterical, measured, serious.  It should be read now; it will stand for a long time.
*by C***O on 1 February 2018*

The extensive reviews on Amazon.com are excellent summaries - I wouldn't presume to add. So why review it? well, first of all to praise a book that's so well-written it's difficult to put down, and wears its scholarship lightly but thoroughly. As an elderly politics junkie I thought I was pretty well-informed, but this book gave me a much better view of the events I've lived through.The other reason for reviewing, of course, is the question 'could it happen here?' Probably not, at least as the authors define it; we have pretty good separation of powers and sense of history. But - Brexit? the behaviour of some of the extremists does begin to fit some of the authors' criteria: Ian Hislop remarked shortly after the referendum that if the result had gone the other way, does anyone think that the Brexiters would have shut up and gone away? What began to worry me as I read this book was their analysis of those European countries that had defeated attempts by extremist authoritarians to seize power - hence the election of Macron in France recently, events in Scandinavia last century, and of course Germany's determined efforts to structure things so that nothing like Hitler could ever happen again. I don't know whether the UK would have the resilience to defeat a determined attempt..That's a personal reflection. Whatever - this is an excellent book, calm, analytical, unhysterical, measured, serious. It should be read now; it will stand for a very long time.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Good read.
*by M***R on 8 April 2018*

The work is well informed and it makes a good read. It is specially interesting in all that concerns American constitutionalism, past and present. The argumentation is focused on the fail-safe procedures and pitfalls of what we currently take for the democratic system, but surprisingly ignores the factor which, in the last instance, is the most important for the preservation of democracy: the people, the voters themselves. You can build all the fail-safes you want into the democratic system to assure its undefeated continuity, but if you have a manipulable pool of voters, a population of mostly simple-minded, uninstructed, reactive people, incapable of thinking by themselves, receptive to the typical lies forged into all-day-long-sounding slogans by crooked politicians —if you have that, your democracy is doomed no matter what. There is no democracy without an enlightened “demos”. Without it, all you have is a “demofallacy”. Not taking into account this factor, makes the argumentation of the work very academic, yes, but also very weak, specially in what it has as a warning against the future that awaits us.A second weakness has this work too: it takes the democratic system as something good in itself without a critical assessment of its failures and shortcomings, particularly in a time like the present, when there is a price to pay (normally high) for the slow-motion consensus-buildups and decision-making processes typical of the complex system Western democracies are. When rapid and decisive action is required you can’t allow yourself to be stopped into inactivity, which is why the Romans substituted dictatorship for the Republic in times of national crises.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Happily Recommend
*by M***R on 7 October 2020*

Excellent! It's very easy to read and as someone who is quite slow at reading, nicely broken down. The book focuses mainly on the breakdown of modern American politics, primarily starting in the 1990s, with the arrival of Gingrich. It talks more about the Republican Party than just Trump. Throughout it is laced with examples of broken democracies from the 20th and 21st Centuries. Great read. I especially liked the discussion on the importance of political norms and the 'guardrails' of democracy. Interesting stuff.

## Frequently Bought Together

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*Last updated: 2026-01-25*