Notes on Democracy
Categories: Politics & Social Sciences
In this essay, first published in 1926, H. L. Mencken offers a sharp and controversial critique of democracy. Writing with his famous wit and contempt for the masses, he argues that democracy rests on false assumptions about the wisdom of ordinary people and gives power to demagogues. This edition, with an introduction by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, presents one of Mencken's least known and most provocative works on politics and its discontents.
Recommended by 1 person
- Shane Parrish: “This is probably Mencken’s least well known (and most outrageously and politically incorrect) essay on democracy and its discontents. It’s not so much that we need to make the world safe for democracy. Mencken argues just the opposite — the world should be made safe from democracy.”