Notes on Democracy

“Democracy came into the Western World to the tune of sweet, soft music. There was, at the start, no harsh bawling from below; there was only a dulcet twittering from above.”

When H. L. Mencken wrote Notes on Democracy the country was coping with the aftermath of World War I, contending with Prohibition, and watching the Scopes trial play out; the air of the nation was full of paranoia and intolerance. And while it may seem that certain views and statements in the book are dated and out of touch, the general critiques and philosophy found in this book remain as relevant (and as controversial) today as it was when it was first published in 1926.

H. L. Mencken was one of America’s most important and influential writers, and he spares nothing and no one in this biting analysis of our system of government. In his review of the book in The Saturday Review of Literature, Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Lipmann describes Notes on Democracy as a “tremendous polemic” that is able to “destroy, by rendering it ridiculous and unfashionable, the democratic tradition of the American pioneers,” and even compares it to The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is Mencken’s trademark satirical and combative rhetoric and style that make the contentious and at times hyperbolic arguments of Notes on Democracy a vital piece of literature in the forever ongoing examination of democracy in America.

Featuring an introduction by Stefan Rudnicki.