The book can be considered one of the most discussed political-historical non-fiction works of recent years. It has also been received with interest in France, Great Britain, Spain, and even Italy itself, where Luciano Canfora has sparked a lively debate with his pointed theses in the Federal Republic. It’s no surprise, as his book is a thorn in the side of those who consider themselves to be in the best of all democracies. For Canfora, democracy is not just a formal facade of oligarchic rule, but rather a rule of the people based on equality. Thus, he concludes his overview of the epochs from ancient Athens to the EU Constitution with the provocative statement: "Democracy has been shifted to other epochs and will be re-conceived by other people. Perhaps no longer by Europeans.".