Press on Against Elections:

Choosing our rulers by popular vote has failed to deliver true democratic government: that seems to be the verdict of history unfolding before our eyes. Cogently and persuasively, David Van Reybrouck pleads for a return to selection by lot, and outlines a range of well thought out plans for how sortitive democracy might be implemented. With the popular media and the political parties fiercely opposed to it, sortitive democracy will not find it easy to win acceptance. Nonetheless, it may well be an idea whose time has come. - J.M. Coetzee

In compelling us to subject all our received ideas and deeply-held convictions to rigorous scrutiny, this fine iconoclastic work could not be more timely. David Van Reybrouck reveals the startling historical fact that the French and Americans chose the electoral method precisely because it was undemocratic and then goes on relentlessly to demonstrate that far from safeguarding our rright to self-determination, elections are actually impeding our democracy. - Karen Armstrong


Press on Congo, The Epic History of a people:

Once opened, an abyss emerges in this book, from which rises a peak of historiography and documentary literature. For Belgium the book of the century, for Europa the book of the decade. - Peter Sloterdijk Süddeutsche Zeitung in ‘Bücher des Jahres'

Jahrhundertbuch – Spiegel online

Eine wunderbare Mischung aus Zeitreise und Reisebericht, aus Doku-Drama und Wirtschaftskrimi, aus Geschichte von unten und Krisenreportage aus eigener Anschauung. – Die Zeit

Van Reybrouck’s extensive account reveals the depth and breadth of exploitation, particularly under Belgian colonial rule, and how Congo’s story is one fraught with the toxic cycle of ‘desire, frustration, revenge. — Publishers Weekly

Van Reybrouck makes a good case for the importance of Congo to world history and its ongoing centrality in a time of resurgent economic colonialism, this time on the part of China. — Kirkus

A monumental history . . . more exciting than any novel. — NRC Handelsblad

An unbelievable tour de force. — Humo

Breathtaking. — Trouw