"This is not a democracy," Antonio Garcia-Trevijano denounces in the first pages of this book. To confront the great lie that Europe does have democratic regimes, a lie rooted in people's confounding of the liberties they enjoy with the political freedom that they lack, the author builds a realistic theory of democracy to end the false idea that corruption, state crime, and public immorality are democracy's (undesirable) products and not the natural and inevitable fruits of oligarchic regimes. Thanks to a superb review of the events that mark the history of democracy, the author reveals the obstacles that, from the 17th century English revolution, the United States' War of Independence, and the French Revolution, opposed political freedom, deviating old Europe's democratic possibilities toward the current parties' state. There exist important theories of the state and of constitution, but none that can be called a theory of democracy. Antonio Garcia-Trevijano's original theory, a modern synthesis of Rousseau's pure democracy and Montesquieu's political freedom, responds to European need for a theory of democracy as a real alternative to the corrupted parties' regime that was engendered by Western pragmatism during the Cold War.

Using the central concept of dependent origination--the belief that nothing exists independently of other things--as a springboard, this study explores the myriad interpretations of this teaching throughout Buddhism's long history. In addition to an unprecedented examination of the original intention of this concept in the philosophical and spiritual context of fifth-century India, the author also discusses little-known or poorly interpreted events in the subsequent evolution of Buddhism, including the earliest councils and schisms within the religion, the Mulamadhyamikakarika of the philosopher Nagarjuna--a text heavily informed by dependent origination--and the development of Mahayana Buddhism, the largest current major tradition in Buddhism. The book ends with several reflections on the possible role Buddhism can play in modern-day society, basing itself on the ideas of contemporary philosophers such as Gustavo Bueno, Jurgen Habermas, and Ken Wilber.
"Tomando como punto de partida el concepto central de la originacion dependiente--la creencia que nada existe independientemente de otras cosas--este estudio explora el gran numero de interpretaciones de esta ensenanza a lo largo de la larga historia del budismo. Aparte de una clarificacion sin precedentes de la intencion original de este concepto en el contexto de la filosofia y espiritualidad india del siglo V a. C., el autor recorre episodios poco conocidos o no siempre bien interpretados de la historia posterior, incluyendo los primeros concilios y cismas dentro de la religion, la Mulamadhyamikakarika del filosofo Nagarjuna--un texto influido por el concepto de la originacion dependiente--y el desarrollo del mahayana, la principal tradicion actual del budismo. El libro termina con unas reflexiones acerca del posible papel del budismo en la sociedad moderna a partir de las ideas de filosofos contemporaneos como Gustavo Bueno, Jurgen Habermas y Ken Wilber."