AC Grayling: Democracy and its Crisis, British Library

AC Grayling, the Master and Professor of Philosophy of London's New College of the Humanities delves deep into the strengths and weaknesses of democracy in an insightful talk at the British Library. Grayling will clarify the creation, concept and reality of representative democracy, before exploring the justification and pitfalls of democracy. He will also suggest how we can fix the flawed system.

The talk is divided into five brief chapters, which each have different focus points. Looking at five moments in history (namely Periclean Athens, the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Weimar Republic), the philosopher and columnist will draw comparisons to show when other governments and nations faced the challenges we are encountering now, if and how they solved them, and what the fallout from their actions was.

In tackling such big concepts in the space of only an hour, Grayling has taken on no mean feat. The core of his discussion is stuff of extensive study. Though the talk may be limited in depth, it does offer a more manageable, bite-size appraisal of democracy, though history to present day.