Democracy Kills: What 's so Good About Having the Vote Humphrey Hawksley The mantra in our Western society is that democracy equals freedom and prosperity. But are we in fact imposing our free-market democracy with the same arrogance that colonial missionaries claimed they were civilizing poor natives a century ago? Is perhaps democracy merely a fig-leaf to protect strategic interests and access economic markets? Or is it simply that no one has yet had a better idea? In his urgent, powerful and engaging new book, acclaimed BBC foreign correspondent Humphrey Hawksley argues that, in some cases, attempts to introduce democracy lead to bloodshed, poverty and disease. He questions whether democracy, far from setting up free, might actually kill us, and if that's the case, what should we do about it? With the democratic mission in Iraq and Afghanistan ending in war Hawksley asks what is the best way to move from dictatorship to democracy without violence. His conclusions might be deeply hostile to conventional thinking. But that doesn't mean to say they are wrong.