This collection of short essays on texts in the history of democracy shows the diversity of ideas that contributed to the making of our present democratic moment. Going beyond the standard, Western-centric canonical history of democracy, with its beginnings in ancient Athens and its climax in the French and American revolutions, this book recovers some of the significant body of democratic and anti-democratic thought in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere. The essays thus de-center our understanding of the moments where the idea of democracy was articulated, rejected, and appropriated.