THE DEMOCRATIC PROSPECT

Few will deny that ""the old words are out of kter and classic ideals of liberal democracy have lost their unambiguous clarity and charm."" Anyone who can further admit that ""the trouble may not lie in our practices but in our stars"" will find a great deal of valuable analysis in this book. Charles Frankel (The Faith of Reason, The Case for Modern Man) astutely examines, defines and upholds such currently clouded concepts as the open society, technology, bureaucracy and the Welfare State. He delves into the present and future problems in every field from mass communication to automation to city planning. He stance in radical in the sense that he goes to the root of every issue, conservative in that he attempts to bring us back toward balanced view of crucial questions. He has attempted that difficult feat, a ""positive"" approach to the democratic process, and has brought it off extremely well. This book may be said to go a long way toward making the label ""liberal"" both respectable and useful.