David’s Sling: a history of democracy in ten works of art
VICTORIA C. GARDNER COATES

Until his run for the presidency was bumped off the rails by Donald Trump, Ted Cruz’s senior foreign policy adviser, Dr Victoria Coates, briefly looked as if she might become the world’s most famous art historian.

Her book on art and democracy is lively and attractively written. She has selected 10 case studies of art masterpieces which she regards as articulating the values and virtues of democracy. It’s a conceit that acts as a springboard to several scintillating and provocative discussions, and she tells some inspiring historical and art historical stories. But from the outset she begs some pretty massive questions. What do we understand by “democracy” in 2016? What did Athenians understand by the term when the Parthenon sculptures materialised, almost magically, nearly 2,500 years earlier? In its civic values and opposition to tyranny, classical Athens may have embodied some of democracy’s most cherished and seminal values – but what about the little matter of the exclusion of slaves, women, foreigners and new immigrants from citizenship?