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|title=Of the People, By the People: A New History of Democracy

|author=Roger Osborne

|publisher=Pimlico

|date=December 2012

|summary=A concise history of democratic governments through the ages, from those of classical Greece to the present day, showing how events in one continent may increasing impact on those in the countries of another

}}

Most authors writing on the subject of democracy tend to concentrate on political theory. Osborne approaches the subject from the historical angle instead, looking at different democracies from that of Greece in the sixth century BC, to the present day. 'Humanity's finest achievement', as Osborne calls it in the first sentence of his prologue, comes from the Greek words ''demos'' (people) and ''kratos'' (rule). It had its origins in the system devised in ancient Athens, the earliest in the world which did not first operate through complex relations of kinship and deference, as had others up to then. Parallels would be seen in Rome a few centuries later.