Vote-buying and fixed elections, slanderous competition, preposterous graft...this is the Washington of the 1870s that Henry Adams reveals in his famous novel. 'Democracy' is the story of two people who aspire to power. Mrs. Lightfoot Lee, a wealthy society widow, wants to align herself with the great lawmakers whom she idealizes. Instead, she becomes involved with Silas Ratcliffe, the most powerful man in the Senate, a leader whose political maneuvers are surpassed only by his courtship tactics. Here is an incisive expose of corruption - in individuals and in government...an entertaining caricature of government life that may be seen to have its application even today. Perhaps the most penetrating historian America has ever produced, Henry Adams pushed beyond the range of satire in 'Democracy' to examine the moral positions that form the foundation of the American republic.
