The era when theorists could urge democrats to whistle their way through the world with an air of 'philosophical superficiality and light-mindedness' (Richard Rorty) is over. In a period of mounting global anxiety and widespread political unrest about democracy's future, the moment has come for more thinking about thinking, and for considering the surprising connections between thinking and democracy. This book provocatively encourages readers to pose afresh key questions - what does it mean to think about democracy, and what exactly is thinking? - and offers them real-world examples of how in these troubled times adventurous thinking about democracy can contribute in practice to new ways of rejuvenating its spirit and substance. Running through the pages of this assemblage of lectures is a passionate belief that in these troubled times democracy - popular self-government and a whole way of life committed to the non-violent refusal of arbitrary power - remains an indispensable planetary ideal.