Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy: On Being an American Citizen Hardcover - 2008

“Charming and even lyrical.”—Baltimore Sun


“Unique . . . fresh and probing . . . strikes at the very heart of America's cruel paradoxes. With a light, yet devastating touch, Griffin charts our continued ‘wrestling’ with democratic ideals—her incisive search for the soul of democracy stirs up pride, despair, and hope.”—Booklist, starred review

“An intellectually satisfying account that shows through the stories of selected historical personalities and her own life that democracy is, and always will be, a work in progress.”—Foreword Magazine

“A fascinating retrospective by a thoughtful participant-observer of the past (nearly) fifty years of great tumult in American society.”—New Age Retailer

“Susan Griffin's superb prose reveals democracy not as a distant abstraction but as a live, inspiring, and difficult presence shaping us every day, an angel all Americans wrestle with.”—George Lakoff, author of Whose Freedom? The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea

“In this compelling book Griffin shows us that democracy is not something that we can take for granted. We must continually establish it in our hearts and in our society.”—Maxine Hong Kingston

“Susan Griffin inspires us, once again, to ask the tough questions and follow them with compassion. This is a prose poem, an ode to freedom, elegiac and revolutionary.”—Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge and The Open Space of Democracy

“Poetic, personal, political, this powerful new work celebrates the true meaning of freedom. Susan Griffin offers readers a provocative meditation on the culture of democracy.”—bell hooks

“Griffin has removed the rhetorical clichés from democracy and revealed a breathing, sentient angel of wisdom, now held captive by tyranny, money, and our misplaced faith in authority. This is nothing less than cultural poverty steeped in history and heart.”—Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest 

Susan Griffin has won dozens of awards for her work as a feminist writer, poet, essayist, playwright, and filmmaker. She is the author of more than twenty books including "A Chorus of Stones," which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the recipient of an Emmy, a MacArthur grant, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a frequent contributor to "Ms." magazine, the "New York Times Book Review," and numerous other publications. She lectures widely and is a frequent guest on national and local radio programs. She lives in Berkeley, California.