The author attempts to combat collective amnesia by systematically exploring and evaluating anti-democratic thought since the French Revolution. Femia examines the various arguments under the headings of 'perversity', 'futility', and 'jeopardy'. This classification scheme enables him to highlight the fatalism and pessimism of anti-democratic thinkers, their conviction that democratic reform would be either pointless or destructive. Femia shows how they failed to understand the adaptability of democracy, its ability to co-exist with traditional and elitist values. But, controversially, he also argues that some of their predictions and observations have been confirmed by history.