The Life and Death of Democracy简介

The Life and Death of Democracy简介
是John Keane写的那本,请问它说了什么?尽量详细一点,因为要写论文所以很急……如果满意的话,所有的分都给您!
呃.可以再用中文解释一遍嘛……?

John Keane’s The Life and Death of Democracy will inspire and shock its readers.Presenting the first grand history of democracy for well over a century,it poses along the way some tough and timely questions:can we really be sure that democracy had its origins in ancient Greece?How did democratic ideals and institutions come to have the shape they do today?Given all the recent fanfare about democracy promotion,why are many people now gripped by the feeling that a bad moon is rising over all the world’s democracies?Do they indeed have a future?Or is perhaps democracy fated to join the poor dodo and the forests of Easter Island in the land of extinction?
The work of one of Britain’s leading political writers,a man whose work on democracy is of ‘world-wide importance’ (The Times),this is no mere antiquarian history.Stylishly written,this superb book confronts its readers with an entirely fresh and irreverent look at the past,present and future of democracy.It unearths the beginnings of such precious institutions and ideals as government by public assembly,votes for women,the secret ballot,trial by jury and press freedom.The Life and Death of Democracy explains how and why democracy spread in modern times to Latin America,Africa and Asia.It tracks the changing,hotly disputed meanings of democracy; retells the best jokes about it; and describes quite a few of the extraordinary characters,many of them long forgotten,who dedicated their lives to building or defending democracy.The book proposes that we are now living in a new age of ‘monitory democracy’,explains why it is potentially the best form of government on earth – and why democracies everywhere are sleepwalking their way into deep trouble.
约翰 基恩的《民主的生存和死亡》将启发和震撼读者.历史上民主的第一次盛大已现为超过一个世纪,它随之引发了一些强硬的、及时的问题：我们真的可以肯定民主的起源在古代希腊吗?民主理想和制度来如何形成现有的模洋?鉴于最近的所有大张旗鼓关于促进民主,为什么现在许多人的感觉世界上所有的民主都被笼罩了?它们真的有前途吗?或者也许是民主很难加入穷人所在的渡渡和大陆东部森林?
这是英国首屈一指的政治作家的作品,他是研究民主的“世界知名人物”（《时代杂志》）,这是不单单是古物古玩类的历史.典型地说,这本极好的书向它的读者展示了一个完全新鲜和真实的过去、现在及未来的民主.它揭示了这些宝贵的公共机构和设想的由来,比如政府大会,妇女投票,秘密投票,陪审团审判和新闻自由等等.《民主的生存和死亡》解释如何以及为什么近代民主广泛传播到亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲.它跟踪了变化的、激烈争议的民主含义;以恰当玩笑重释民主;并介绍了一些献出生命来建造或捍卫民主的非凡人物,其中许多早已被人遗忘.书中提出,我们现在生活在“监督民主”新时代,解释了为什么它（民主国家）可能是地球上最好的政府形式,为什么民主到处都是并且以梦幻般的速度深入我们的生活.