Book request: human history of voting

August 6, 2021 10:04 PM

Looking for a good deep dive on the human, global history of voting methods. Not looking for something necessarily American centric. Ancient methods of the written, oral and other types of tabulation of votes until current civilization (or parts thereof) are my preference.

Not interested in opinion pieces but more historically focused and primary document oriented. Academic articles, documentaries, or podcasts welcome also.

Thank you!

posted by goodnight moon to Law & Government (1 answer total)

Since nothing has popped up yet:

This isn't what you're asking for, but is adjacent: _Classics of Social Choice_, I forget the editors. It's not a history of voting and voting methods. It's a collection of primary documents, mostly translated, about what we'd now call social choice theory -- the theory of how individual preferences get aggregated into some statement of collective preference.

IIRC, it has some Roman you've heard of like Livy or Cicero, Borda, Condorcet, Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), other people who were thinking about these issues before stuff got more systematized in the 20th century.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:11 AM on August 7, 2021 [1 favorite]