"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Thursday, January 04, 2018

Forged Through Fire - War, Peace, and the Democratic Bargain (John Ferejohn and Frances McCall Rosenbluth, 2017)

(316 pages)

This book received really strong reviews and sounded really interesting, but I just didn't find it that compelling.  Not sure why.

The premise:  the more that a state needs to expand the size of its army, the more likely that the state will expand the franchise and otherwise function like a democracy.

Which makes sense - hard enough to whip up suckers recruits to prosecute the state's wars, so offering that sort of carrot might help.

Plenty of counter-examples, however.
Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)