Democracy False or True? A Prologue and a Dream by Sir W. B. Richmond

Description

Sir William Blake Richmond — Slade Professor of Fine Art, painter of mosaics and portraits, friend of the great — wrote this book as he admitted, dangerously and agreeably, in the spirit of a man playing the prophet. Democracy, he worried, was being confused with something it was not, and he set out to sift the true from the false: what a people should govern, what it must never attempt, and how the arts and the inner life of the nation fare when the crowd rules the market.

The result is a book of Edwardian essays that are anything but academic — an artist’s meditation on liberty, leadership, art, and the soul of a constitutional state, written to provoke argument rather than settle it. A century on, its questions about equality, competence, and the temper of democratic politics have lost none of their edge.

Why readers still come back to it

• A rare and unfashionable Edwardian sceptic — an artist as political thinker
• Sober prophecies about democracy that still speak to the present
• Personal, epigrammatic essays by a Slade Professor of fine art

About this DodaBooks edition

This edition gives you the complete text with clean, professional typesetting, a working table of contents, and careful chapter navigation — designed for comfortable reading on phones, tablets, and e-readers. Instant download after purchase.