Books by John Keane

One day they'll be like us. That was once the West's complacent assumption about countries emerging from poverty, imperial rule, or communism. But many have hardened into something very different from liberal democracy: what eminent political thinker John Keane describes as a new form of despotism. And one day, he warns, we may be more like them.

Vaclav Havel is revered as one of the 20th-century's great playwrights, dissidents, and honest champions of democracy. This study reveals a Havel, dramatising the key moments of joy, misery, triumph and tragedy on which his life has turned.

The definitive biography of Tom Paine, published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of his death

This work looks anew at the belief that we are in an era of more intense violence than ever experienced before. It includes a demonstration of how the term "violence" is riddled with paradoxes. There is also an examination of the prospects for greater civility which rejects simple-minded pacifism.