{"id":59,"date":"2025-10-17T14:38:01","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/?p=59"},"modified":"2025-10-17T16:07:55","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T15:07:55","slug":"henry-adams-looks-for-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/?p=59","title":{"rendered":"Henry Adams looks for Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Around the globe, the news every day is full of talk about the rise of autocracy, the challenge \u2013 even threat \u2013 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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s just across Lafayette Square from the White House. …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the rest of Henry Adams looks for Democracy<\/a> on Substack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Around the globe, the news every day is full of talk about the rise of autocracy, the challenge \u2013 even threat \u2013 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 … Continue reading Henry Adams looks for Democracy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criticism","category-don-nordberg-is-on-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions\/62"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stourbend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}