This fine book brings to bear Walter Murphy's manifold gifts: breadth of knowledge about political systems around the world and throughout history, keen critical learning about ancient and modern political thought, deep understanding of constitutional law, and a clear and clever style. It is thus a perfect place for relative novices to get an overview of the search for the best possible political system for sustaining Murphy's highest value, “respect for the great and equal dignity of all human beings” (p. 341). “Constitutional democracy” is for him this best possible system. At the same time, graduate students preparing for field exams in political or constitutional theory can find in Murphy's references and footnotes an excellent bibliography for their studies.

The best thing about the book is the lively, learned, and interesting scheme Murphy devises to present his analysis of the current state of the search for answers to the Aristotelian question: What for man, a political animal, is the best political system for seeking not life only, but the good life? (Murphy is basically Aristotelian, it seems to this reader, in his approach to political questions—a boon for the wisdom and usefulness of this book.) The author creates a mythical country, Nusquam, recently freed in a coup by some Colonels, from the long, despotic rule of a Junta. Nusquam seems to be a middle-sized nation somewhere in the Mediterranean-Balkan-post-Soviet world. Happily for Murphy's purposes, the Colonels, pledging to “surrender power to lawfully constituted civilian officials,” have summoned “a Caucus for a New Political System to propose a fresh constitutional order for our nation” (p. 31). He then populates the Caucus with prototype figures: a liberal-minded, no-nonsense colonel as chair; a radical, feminist sociology graduate student; a liberal journalist who had been jailed by the Junta; a learned, populist Jesuit priest; a Lutheran pastor who had opposed the Junta; a Sunni Muslim professor of Islamic studies; a University of Chicago–trained law and economics graduate who had been a sort of dissident civil servant under the Junta (Federika Strega); a distinguished, patriotic elder statesman (Vaclav Pilsudski); a Chinese immigrant banker; a gypsy; and others.

From predictable but clever, sometimes humorous, and keenly argued speeches by the delegates, and from learned lectures by invited scholars whom the delegates debate fervently, Murphy creates a wonderfully insightful and interesting survey of the issues and arguments about polity currently before scholars, and public figures in transitional democracies and new nations around the world. This is the most substantial part of the book, and the part we can all enjoy and learn from. Cogent arguments are offered for representative democracy, consociational democracy, guided capitalism (or democracy), economic democracy, liberal authoritarianism, constitutional democracy (Murphy's favorite), and other systems. Delegates and experts offer counterarguments. The fair-minded Colonel easily leads the Caucus past the multiple pros and cons to a decision that Nusquam will be a constitutional democracy; all this in 184 delightful pages.

The rest of the book slows down. We already have Murphy's thesis that a constitutional democracy is the best form of government for assuring respect for the dignity of all human beings before us, clearly and earnestly argued. The next five chapters (to p. 323) continue the constructed dialogue, but tediously over details of the proposed constitution: Should it be a written document? What should its form be? The judiciary. A Bill of Rights. Special cases. Discussion repeats arguments made earlier, and excessive detail from countries around the world, including the United States, weary the reader. These chapters would make fine reference works for those interested in the particular topic, but will cause flagging interest for readers of the whole book.

The second part, “Maintaining a Constitutional Democracy,” is again not nearly as interesting as the first chapters. Most of it would make a good handbook for those concerned about the particular problems of establishing a constitutional democracy in a state, or a failed state, without experience with and skill in constitutional institutions and procedures. Murphy describes and analyzes such matters as building military and security forces, creating efficient and responsive bureaucracies, dealing with deposed despots, and doing constitutional interpretation and change. All well and good, one supposes—particular matters worth taking up—but after 400 pages, it is anticlimactic considering the earlier sparkle and verve.

A middle section, on “Creating Citizens,” is the only place, though a crucial one, where Murphy's discussion seems thin and neglectful. He posits three types of citizens: “Ideal” ones who possess the Aristotelian virtues of knowledge about, interest in, and devotion to the public good; “Adequate” ones who are occasionally concerned about public affairs and have some fragmentary information about them, and who are sometimes keen to remove officers they disapprove of, but are otherwise preoccupied with their personal or group interests; and “Disaffected” ones who are “true aliens” without understanding of, respect for, or participation in the institutions of the polity (p. 350). Murphy offers this analysis after noting that polls for half a century or more have shown most Americans to be in the “Adequate” category at best—so the need to create citizens must accept this and keep at the usual emphases on education and local participation without expecting any great success. At the same time Murphy worries about the dangers of trying to nourish ideas of national identity and shared public purposes because of the obvious abuse that has so often followed such emphasis.

Missing, then, is attention to what Benjamin Franklin told the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was the critical need in enfranchising citizens: attending to “the virtue and public spirit of our common people.” Franklin went on to observe that soldiers in the Revolutionary armies had shown such spirit, and that it could be cultivated by good treatment of the people. Furthermore, wealth had little to do with public spirit; “some of the greatest rogues he was ever acquainted with, were the richest rogues,” he added (Ralph Ketcham, ed., The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates, 1986, pp. 148–50.) As Thomas Jefferson in Franklin's day, and theorists of democracy ever since from Alexis de Tocqueville to Joseph Tussman and Michael Sandel have always insisted, democracy requires virtue in its citizenry, the capacity to see beyond one's own self-interest to the good of the polity as a whole, if it is to be good government. Murphy knows this, but he is too willing to endorse a minimal, “adequate” citizenry as a necessary compromise, when in fact the need is to seek and nourish different levels of public spirit (virtue) in all citizens, native and naturalized. The essence of creating citizens, then, is to keep the “ideal” in view as the nation works toward it, imperfectly and incompletely of course, but with conviction that enough progress is possible to make the effort not only worth it but also the only way to approach at all the good fruits of self-government aspired to around the world. Murphy says many wise and important things about pursuing the ideal, but he needs to be more forthright and profound about creating the necessary citizens for the journey.