Proverbial Democracy

Name: Proverbial Democracy
Price: 32.66 AUD
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ISBN: 9783034365673

Government of the People, by the People, for the People

Wolfgang Mieder

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Paperback

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English

Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
16 April 2026

Semantics; Dictionaries of quotations; Political ideologies; Political structures: democracy

In the Gettysburg Address of 1863, Abraham Lincoln famously declared that ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth’. Since then the phrase has become the proverbial definition of American democracy. In this book, internationally renowned folklorist Wolfgang Mieder explains why and how this happened.

Drawing on a lifetime of studying political rhetoric, Mieder shows how the phrase drew on earlier formulations, and how it was rapidly adopted around the English-speaking world, including by leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama. The phrase echoes down the centuries, and continues to reverberate in the most recent political discourse and in the rhetoric of presidents in our own time.

This historical survey of the democratic proverb is, above all, a passionate affirmation that ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’ has served the country well, in stating the fundamental premise of a democracy, and that it will continue to do so in turbulent times.

By: Wolfgang Mieder
Imprint: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Country of Publication: Switzerland
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 148mm,
Weight: 125g
ISBN: 9783034365673
ISBN 10: 3034365675
Pages: 76
Publication Date: 16 April 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Wolfgang Mieder is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of German and Folklore at the University of Vermont, where he taught for fifty years and was the long-time chairperson of the Department of German and Russian. Among his many honors are honorary doctorates from the universities of Athens, Bucharest, and Vermont. The author of more than one hundred books on fairy tales, folk songs, and legends, he is recognized internationally for his expertise in paremiology (proverb studies).