096 The Future of Democracy | David Stasavage
Curiosityness
Travis DeRose
4.8 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 6 October 2020
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You've probably been told that democracy is the ultimate, indisputable, best type of governance. But modern democracy is less than 250 years old―It's largely an experiment with no previous track record!
Myself, and most others, would say that democracy is arguably the best form of governance. But perhaps there are ways to tweak and improve it so that the people ultimately have the power!
That's what get's me excited about this episode with David Stasavage. David is the author of the book, The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today.
Delving into the prevalence of early democracy throughout the world, David Stasavage makes the case that understanding how and where these democracies flourished―and when and why they declined―can provide crucial information not just about the history of governance, but also about the ways modern democracies work and where they could manifest in the future.
Tune in to learn…
-Where democracy originated from (It's not what you were taught in school),
-What democracy actually means,
-Why democracies tend to thrive & crumble,
-About the democratic experiment occurring in the United States,
-Why America may not have actually been a democracy until 1965,
-& so much more!
Grab your copy of David's book, The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today, on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2GidE0r
Visit David's website at https://stasavage.com/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A spontaneous and unrehearsed interview. |
| 0:08.0 | Hello and welcome to the 96th episode of Curiosityness. |
| 0:12.0 | I am Travis DeRose. Thank you for being here. |
| 0:15.0 | And today we're talking to David's the Savage. |
| 0:18.0 | He is the author of a book called The Decline and Rise of Democracy, |
| 0:22.1 | a global history from antiquity to today. So this is a good, interesting conversation. I really, |
| 0:27.6 | really enjoyed it more than I thought I would, honestly, too, because, you know, democracy and stuff |
| 0:32.3 | can be a bit of a dull topic, but this was super fascinating. Just never really gave it a thought as to where democracy |
| 0:39.8 | came from and why it arose, but it seems like it's a naturally occurring thing. And honestly, |
| 0:47.2 | democracy, as you'll learn, means people having power and, you know, the democracy that we're |
| 0:53.0 | sold on, at least here in the U.S., that it's the greatest |
| 0:56.0 | thing ever, and there's nothing better, and just believe in it always, you know, it leaves me a little |
| 1:02.0 | defeated or frustrated and feeling a little powerless sometimes. Like, I just get to elect |
| 1:06.9 | somebody every couple years, and I don't really, I'm not really a person that has power. |
| 1:12.0 | So that's kind of the issues and stuff that we talk about with this in this episode of, you know, |
| 1:16.9 | where democracy came from, how it arose and, you know, what it really means and the differentiation |
| 1:22.6 | between early democracy and kind of modern democracy and that modern democracy isn't really that old. |
| 1:28.8 | It's still kind of an experiment. |
| 1:30.2 | So it's a good conversation. |
| 1:32.1 | I think you're going to enjoy it. |
| 1:33.5 | Let's get to the episode. |
| 1:38.2 | All right. |
... |
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