Will of the people: original democracy in non-western socities

This book has an unmistakable and remark able prophetic quality.
In those years the two superpowers have been indulging in the practice of supporting dictatorships in pursuit of their global strategy, one propped up right-wing "authoritarians" for the convenience of dealing abroad with one man governments rather than with messy democratic systems; the other kept a whole half continent under left-wing monolithic parties ostensibly to protect its western flank.
The superpowers justified their parallel policies with the long circulated condescension that democracy was a Western European/ North American invention, unsuited for, indeed undesired by, non-Western countries.
When Raul S. Manglapus found himself in exile in the U.S. for the thirteen and half years of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, he decided to do battle against both these superpower policies.
Manglapus obtained a grant from Freedom House in New York and set out to prove, with painstaking research, that democracy is universal in the cultures of the world and not just a "Western value"
To establish his thesis, he relied heavily on the Indian experience and came personally to India to study and savor it. He spent many long months on research travels and in the libraries of the U.S. Congress and
Harvard. The Philippines returned to democracy February with its historic and uniquely in peaceful "People Power" revolution.
Today from his office as Foreign Minister in Manila, Manglapus occupies a front seat from which he has the satisfaction of seeing his Will Of The People confirmed dramatically in the tidal wave of democracy now engulfing Latin America, Northeast Asia and, most unexpectedly, Eastern Europe,