How Republics Die: Creeping Authoritarianism in Ancient Rome and Beyond

Authoritarianism is everywhere on the advance; democracies seem fragile and threatened. We console ourselves that where rule by the people has long established itself, it has never collapsed from internal causes. Except it did, once: in Rome.

This book gathers together Roman historians with political scientists and scholars of other periods of authoritarian takeover to explore how open and democratic political systems have historically fallen prey to autocrats. The Late Roman Republic is th...