Around the globe, the news every day is full of talk about the rise of autocracy, the challenge – even threat – it poses to democratic institutions, and the questions it poses for political order, justice and liberty. Where better to look for answers than in a work of fiction, contrived a century and a half ago?
Under the shadow of political turmoil of the 1870s, Henry Brooks Adams went on a quest to locate democracy, taking his protagonist, the 30-year-old and recently widowed Mrs. Lightfoot Lee out of her comfortable if sad life in New York to spend the winter in Washington. She occupies a house where the people she meets gather to engage in polite combat over the spoils of electoral victory. It’s just across Lafayette Square from the White House. …
Read the rest of Henry Adams looks for Democracy on Substack.
