Democracy In Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions
Katlyn Marie Carter
Oct 2023 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Kate Udall
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14 hr 47 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
How debates over secrecy and transparency in politics during the eighteenth century shaped modern democracy Does democracy die in darkness, as the saying suggests? This book reveals that modern democracy was born in secrecy, despite the widespread conviction that transparency was its very essence. In the years preceding the American and French revolutions, state secrecy came to be seen as despotic-an instrument of monarchy. But as revolutionaries sought to fashion representative government, they faced a dilemma. In a context where gaining public trust seemed to demand transparency, was secrecy ever legitimate? Whether in Philadelphia or Paris, establishing popular sovereignty required navigating between an ideological imperative to eradicate secrets from the state and a practical need to limit transparency in government. The fight over this-dividing revolutionaries and vexing founders-would determine the nature of the world's first representative democracies. Unveiling modern democracy's surprisingly shadowy origins, Carter reshapes our understanding of how government by and for the people emerged during the Age of Revolutions.
About the author
Katlyn Marie Carter is assistant professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. She lives in South Bend, Indiana.
Kate Udall's evocative narrative style has been recognized with two AudioFile Earphones Awards and an Audie nomination. An Audible Approved Producer, she has recorded over 142 audiobooks for publishers including Harper, Doubleday, Tantor, Macmillan, and Brilliance.
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