Content area
Full Text
Icons of Democracy: American Leaders as Heroes, Aristocrats, Dissenters, and Democrats. By Bruce Miroff. New York: Basic Books, 1993. 422p. $25.00.
Is there such a thing as "democratic leadership," or are the two terms (in Thomas E. Cronin's words) "warring concepts"? In this ambitious, and thought-provoking work, Bruce Miroff examines "the rich variety of forms that American political leadership has taken" (p. 2) and explores the possibility of achieving forms of democratic leadership in the United States.
Recognizing that "leadership has rarely fit comfortably with democracy in America," and that "the most committed democrats have been suspicious of the very idea of leadership," Miroff asks, "What kinds of democratic leadership and followership might be possible in America?" (pp. vii, 1). Is the tension between leadership and democracy creative or destructive of democratic values?
Miroff finds four types of leadership in the United States: aristocratic, democratic, heroic, and dissenting. The author then examines each of the styles of leadership as practiced by representative figures in American history. Aristocratic leadership attempts "to tame the democratic passions of the American masses" by allowing those of "superior eminence" to rule over the people (p....