Democracy (Classic Books on Cassettes Collection) [UNABRIDGED] [Unabridged] (Audio Cassette)

~ (Author), Flo Gibson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

First published anonymously in 1880, the mother of all (American) political novels is the story of Madeleine Lee, a young widow who comes to Washington, DC, to understand the workings of government. "What she wanted was POWER." During the course of the novel, she sees enough of power and its corruptions to last her a lifetime. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

“[One] of the most perceptive books ever written about Washington.” —Maureen Dowd, The New York Times


From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Audio Book Contractors (January 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155685255X
• ISBN-13: 978-1556852558
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,155,682 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Political satire that is still relevant today, June 2, 2002

By	D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Democracy: An American Novel (Meridian) (Paperback)

"Democracy" is what "Primary Colors" would have been if the latter had been well-written. Like Joe Klein, Adams published his book anonymously and skewered a number of contemporary politicians (including President Rutherford B. Hayes). But Adams goes two steps further: his novel is a scathing commentary more on the American political system in general than on one administration in particular, and his characters are iconic and recognizable in any era.

In "Democracy," the nation's capital "swarms with simple-minded exhibitions of human nature; men and women curiously out of place, whom it would be cruel to ridicule and ridiculous to weep over." But Adams is not hesitant about being cruel in his portrayal of Washington's residents, and he saves his weeping for the true victims in his novel: the American people. The typical American senator combines "the utmost pragmatical self-assurance and overbearing temper with the narrowest education and meanest personal experience that ever existed in any considerable government." (Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose!)

The story concerns Madeleine Lee, an intelligent and well-meaning (if somewhat naive) New York widow, who, bored with her cosmopolitan lifestyle, travels to Washington to learn what makes the nation tick. She and her sister are quickly surrounded by a diverse group of politicians, lobbyists, and foreign diplomats, and she finds herself courted by Silas Ratcliffe, a senator with presidential aspirations whose talent "consisted in the skill with which he evaded questions of principle." During one heated (and humorous) argument about George Washington's merits, Ratcliffe sums up his view of politics: "If virtue won't answer our purpose, then we must use vice, or our opponents will put us out of office."

Adams's prose is almost Jamesian in its measured pacing (and this may simply bore some readers); the initial chapters are unhurried as he weaves the web of the plot and sketches his all-too-believable characters. Along the way he tosses barbed zingers at every target. The climactic passages are among the most comically riveting, emotionally intense, and morally satisfying finales I've read in a satire: as you might expect, nobody gets exactly what they want, but everyone gets what they deserve.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really worth reading, January 3, 1999

By	Schmerguls "schmerguls" (Sioux City, Ia USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Democracy: An American Novel (Meridian) (Paperback)

This book read very well 118 years after it was published. I suppose there are "guides" which would tie the characters to actual people--maybe I should check Ernest Samuels' 3-volume bio, which I read in March of 1985, and see what he says. Apparently the president was Hayes--it certainly fits him in some ways, tho it is rather hard on him. The problems the book does not solve--campaign finance and its relation to political action--are not yet solved.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars an amusing take on politics, February 10, 2001

By	Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Democracy an American Novel (Hardcover)

To act with entire honesty and self-respect, one should always live in a pure atmosphere, and the atmosphere of politics is impure. -Senator Silas Ratcliffe, Democracy

In his own lifetime, Henry Adams was famous first for being the grandson of John Quincy Adams, thus the great grandson of John Adams; second for his epic History of the United States During the Jefferson and Madison Administrations. It was only upon his death, in 1918, that his third person autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams, was published and that his publisher revealed that Adams had written the previously anonymous novel Democracy. It is The Education which has sustained his reputation, having been named the number one book on the Modern Library list of the Top 100 Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century, but Democracy is still considered one of the better novels of American politics, though surprisingly it is currently out of print.

The novel is both a fairly typical 19th Century comedy of manners--with the widow Madeleine Lee decamping from New York to Washington DC, where she instantly becomes one of the Capital's most desirable catches--and a more serious meditation on the nature and pursuit of power in the American democracy. The widow Lee is specifically interested in Washington because it is the seat of power :

...she was bent upon getting to the heart of the great American mystery of democracy and government.

. . .

What she wished to see, she thought, was the clash of interests, the interests of forty millions of people and a whole continent, centering at Washington; guided, restrained, controlled, or unrestrained and uncontrollable, by men of ordinary mould; the tremendous forces of government, and the machinery of society at work. What she wanted was POWER.

Mrs. Lee's most likely pursuer is Senator Silas Ratcliffe of Illinois, widely considered a likely future President : he sees her as a perfect First Lady and she sees him as her path to power. Through an elaborate courtship ritual and several set piece scenes (in the Senate, at the White House, at Mount Vernon, at Arlington Cemetery and at a dress ball) Adams puts his characters through their paces and affords the reader an intimate look at the rather tawdry political milieu of the 1870's. The theme that runs throughout the story is that access to power comes only through compromising one's principles, but Adams is sufficiently ambivalent about the point that we're uncertain whether he's more contemptuous of those who make the necessary deals or those who, by staying "pure," sacrifice the opportunity to influence affairs of state. Suffice it to say that the novel ends with Mrs. Lee, assumed by most critics to represent Adams himself, fleeing to Egypt, telling her sister : "Democracy has shaken my nerves to pieces."

Like his presidential forebears, Henry Adams had a realistic and therefore jaundiced view of politics, even as practiced in a democracy. The Adams's did not subscribe to the starry eyed idealism of the Jeffersonians. But they were all drawn to politics, even realizing that it was a moral quagmire. This is the fundamental dilemma of the conservative democrat, we recognize that we have to govern ourselves because we know we can't trust unelected rulers, but we also understand that our elected representatives are unlikely to be any more honest than the tyrants we threw out. This attitude is famously captured in Winston Churchill's (alleged) aphorism : "Democracy: the worst of all possible systems, but there is no other which would be better." And the unfortunate corollary is that unless relatively honorable men like the Adamses and the Churchills pursue careers in politics, the field will be left to the real scoundrels. Henry Adams doesn't offer any solutions to the dilemma, but he offers an amusing take on it.

GRADE : B