I’m currently reading James Kloppenberg’s behemoth, Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought (2016). This is a massive book about the history of democracy, particularly the rise of democratic ideas (and ideals) from the 1600s to the late 1800s. While most histories of democracy focus on political and social institutions, Kloppenberg argues that much greater attention needs to be given to democracy as an ethical system. According to Kloppenberg, democracy isn’t defined by political and social institutions but rather through the ways in which individuals within a political community view themselves in relation to the broader body politic. The primary ethical ideals that exist in democracies are, according to Kloppenberg: reciprocity (the idea of working together for the greater public good, rather than working for oneself; also, the idea of accepting decisions even when you disagree with them), deliberation (the idea of discussing and debating issues in a rational manner), and pluralism (the idea of the body politic being made up of diverse peoples and ideals, and the acceptance of those differences). Very often, civil wars in democratic states like the U.S. during the mid-19th century occurred when these ideals vanished (or never existed in the first place).

Outside of these three ethical ideals, Kloppenberg sees the history of democracy as being defined by a conflict over three issues: popular sovereignty, equality, and autonomy. He argues that the birth of modern democracy first arose within the British North American colonies, and he gives a great deal of emphasis on the role religion—particularly Protestantism—played, at least initially, in creating modern notions of those ideas. Specifically, the Protestant Reformation and the Protestant ideas held by the early American colonists established notions of autonomy that freed individuals (intellectually, if not always in practice) from feudal and religious institutions and concepts.

Kloppenberg doesn’t see the history of democracy as progressing inevitably forward toward greater liberty and equality. Contradiction and conflict are at the heart of any democracy, which has meant that nothing was or is inevitable about the creation and growth of democracy in the Western world. Moreover, it's very rare for any democratic society to hold purely the ethical ideals of reciprocity, deliberation, and pluralism.

Hence, the title of the book: “toward democracy.” The history of democracy is a story of persistent failure by many peoples to establish a humane, virtuous, and free society. North European society has consistently worked toward democracy, but never quite made it to that idyll. As an ethical concept, Kloppenberg's definition of democracy is likely impossible to establish. The contradictions and countervailing forces in democratic governance and society are likely too great to establish such a society. Yet, if I understand him correctly, there’s still a great deal of value in trying.

I’ll end by saying that I think that this is definitely a good book to read for our present situation, where we are seeing a great deal of political polarization not just in the United States but throughout the world. Kloppenberg does an excellent job at demonstrating that democracy only works when citizens treat each other humanely, work together for the public good, and engage in rational deliberation with each others’ ideas and values.

Can anybody recommend books or articles on medieval and early modern war hammers? I'm looking for something with descriptions of how they were made, production centers, specific smiths and their styles etc.

Question about academic writing: is it bad form to cite a book review for criticism of a particular scholarly trend? (That is, the reviewer raises that particularly criticism when they find it in the book in question) Or do I have to track down a non-review published source of it?

Unfortunately that reviewer has moved on to other topics, so I can't just pop in their most recent book/article.

Where would be a good starting point for Imperial Chinese history? I started with the Tang Dynasty but found myself not understanding when the author referenced previous dynasties. If anyone could help me and maybe give me some recommendations for books to read of probably early Chinese history that would be awesome.

Are Dan Jones' books a good place for an amateur to start reading about the Wars of the Roses, the Plantagenets, etc? I realize that they're probably limited as popular history, but are they accurate, as far as they go? I'm mainly interested because they - unlike several other relevant books - have highly rated Audible versions, and my eyes are terrible.

I've been moving through a lot of books over the last few months. Those on the list include The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Empire of Things, and The Conditions of Postmodernity. American Growth is a damn well-researched piece of work, but I haven't been able to really get into reading it because it's so broad. I like Gordon's argument though; if I was looking to do something on one particular topic I'd be hard pressed not to include his work, but just for fun it seems a bit much. Empire of Things has the same kind of issue: extremely well-researched, fairly well-written, would include with American Growth in any economic history topic I'm doing, but too broad right now for me.

So instead I've been working through David Harvey's work. The writing is somewhat fun to go through, and I really like that he sums up Marx's entire analysis of capitalism in about 12 pages. I also really enjoy his annotation early twentieth century to 1973 American economic growth.

After Harvey I'll be reading through Joel Mokyr's recent book The Culture of Growth. Much more focused on one particular idea rather than the extensive and almost exceedingly broad books that or American Growth and Empire of Things. After that I'm going to go through As Time Goes By again which I highly recommend for anyone interested in economic history, or economics in general. It's one of the most underrated texts on economic history and technological history that I only found thanks to my professor.

Gave up on Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party because I'm just not up to reading it right now. Switched over to fiction with The Nightmare Stacks. Autistic maths savant vampire boy meets extra-dimensional elf girl wearing the skin of a human. He has family drama. She has an invading army for which she's the advance scout. There's a terrible battle that kills thousands and wrecks a good portion of Leeds including a friendly fire incident that claims hundreds of anime convention-goers. Really liked it.

Now I'm back in the saddle with Empire of Cotton. Just done the introduction so far, but it looks promising.

I read Empire's of the Silk Road last year by Chris Beckwith. I'm on the fence about it and I know it has, to be blunt, received a lot of crap from academics and pop readers alike. That being said what is everyone's opinion on it--is it worth keeping in my library as a source?