High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Life and Death of Democracy is a 2009 book by John Keane and published by Simon & Schuster. Keane claims his book is the first attempt to write a full history of democracy for well over a century - the last such attempt he states on this scale was by the American Nahum Capen, whose first volume was published in 1874. Some have claimed to have already provided such a comprehensive history, but Keane has rejected this claim.