About the book
Democracy’s Double Helix (CUP, 2025) invites us to rethink a question that feels newly urgent: where did modern democracy really come from, and why does it so often feel unstable? Rather than treating democracy as history’s inevitable destination, the book traces its origins to a fusion of two distinct traditions: medieval political participation and the early modern rise of individual equality. These strands first intertwined during the American and French revolutions, producing a system that was never fully planned, never guaranteed, and remains perpetually under strain. By exploring the political habits and assumptions that existed before democracy’s emergence, the book reveals why its “double helix” has always carried tension at its core and why that tension helps explain democracy’s current crisis.
Lars Behrisch is an Associate Professor of Political History in the Department of History and Art History at Utrecht University. His research focuses on political culture, democracy, revolutions and political participation from the late medieval period through the eighteenth-century, and he is the author of Democracy’s Double Helix: Participation, Equality and Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Behrisch’s work also engages with the history of religion, urban life, social control and identity formation, and he has published on the use of statistics in eighteenth-century politics, a project that earned him the Carl-Erdmann-Preis by the German Historians’ Association.
Discussants:
Barbara Stollberg‑Rilinger is a distinguished German historian renowned for her work on the political and cultural history of early modern Europe, especially the Holy Roman Empire. She is a Professor Emerita of Modern History at the University of Münster, and since 2018, she has served as Rector of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin – Institute for Advanced Study. A recipient of major awards including the Leibniz Prize and the Sigmund Freud Prize, her recent publications include a celebrated biography of Empress Maria Theresa.
Avi Lifschitz is a Professor of Intellectual History and Enlightenment Studies at the University of Oxford and Fellow at Magdalen College. His research focuses on Enlightenment intellectual and cultural history, with particular interests in anthropology, theology, political thought, translation, and cross-cultural exchange. He is a convenor of Oxford’s Enlightenment Workshop, and his publications include the first modern English edition of the writings of Frederick the Great.
Moderator: Alexandra Kardos, Editor for the “History of Ideas” section at the Review of Democracy.
