Adventures in Democracy by Erica Benner review – many men, many minds

A sparkling account of people power through the ages, and how to save it from itself

Will not many men have many minds?” Abigail Adams asked her husband in a letter in November 1775. The American colonies were at war with Britain and founding father John Adams was in Philadelphia, making the case for independence and a new form of self-government. “I wish I knew what mighty things were fabricating,” she wrote. Not being there when notions of people power were being debated was agony for the future president’s most trusted adviser. What if democracy didn’t prove to be any less troublesome than monarchy? “I am more and more convinced,” she warned, “that man is a dangerous creature, and that power whether vested in many or a few is ever grasping.”

On 4 July the following year, the Declaration of Independence, which John Adams had helped draft, made the United States the first modern democracy. Nearly 250 years later, much of the western world continues to see democracy as something that goes hand in hand with progress.