How Democracy Ends - Hardcover

Scintillating ... thought-provoking ... Runciman's flair for turning a pithy and pungent phrase is one of the things to admire about his writing. The cogency, subtlety and style with which he teases out the paradoxes and perils faced by democracy makes this one of the very best of the great crop of recent books on the subject. (Andrew Rawnsley Observer)

Presented in pellucid prose free of the jargon of academic political science, How Democracy Ends is a strikingly readable and richly learned contribution to understanding the world today ... surely one of the most luminously intelligent books on politics to have been published for many years. (John Gray New Statesman)

Bracingly intelligent...a wonderful read (Mark Mazower Guardian)

Breezy yet incisive...Runciman may not have all the answers, but there is certainly plenty of nourishment here. (Klaus Dodds Geographical)

Full of intriguing new lines of thought (Gideon Rachman FT)

Refreshingly, rather than a knicker-twisting diatribe about Trump and Brexit, Runciman offers a thoughtful analysis about what popular democracy means, and its alternatives. (Katrina Gulliver Spectator)

Clear-headed, compact and timely (Irish Times)

An excellent book: it is well-written, evenly paced, accessible, non-academic in tone but very much so in rigour and thoughtfulness. It is sceptical but not pessimistic, and warnful but not alarmist ... It is heartily recommended for anyone who seeks to understand our current malaise and interested in this question of how democracy got to where it is today, and where it may go - if anywhere - next. (LSE Review of Books)

Refreshingly free of received and rehearsed wisdoms, Runciman doesn't tiptoe around sacred cows and invites us to take part in that most adult way of thinking: to examine contradictory ideas in tandem and ponder what the dissonance amounts to. . . . [H]e argues lucidly, persuasively, even exhilaratingly at times. The nightly news will never appear exactly the same again (Australian)

Praise for The Confidence Trap: Runciman's book abounds with fresh insights, arresting paradoxes, and new ways of posing old problems (Andrew Gamble Times Literary Supplement)