Abstract:In The Public and its Possibilities, John D Fairfield synthesizes the work of a multitude of scholars to give a detailed overview of the trajectory of the public throughout American history. It is an impressive survey of American social, political and labour history as seen through the lens of a civic public created through deliberation and engaged with political questions. In it Fairfield weaves together case studies from different times and places into a single complex story of experience, stimulation and repression of participatory democracy and its connections to market, political, social and cultural forces.