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October 2007Beyond the DictionaryNews reports on Iraq's benchmarks for democracy and on Myanmar's military efforts to crush their nation's pro-democracy movement have meant that the word democracy has been getting a significant number of look-ups — it earned the number 16 spot last month. The concept of representative democracy arose less from ancient Greek practice than from ideas and institutions that developed in medieval Europe, during the Enlightenment, and in the American and French Revolutions. The dictionary tells us "people" put the "dem-" in "democracy" but the Encyclopedia tells us much more. |