I'm torn. I can't work out whether the Occupy movements were responsible for their own demise; and I can't work out whether I've had enough of reading tomes about the brave new world of revolutionary consensus-building.

THE DEMOCRACY PROJECT: A History, a Crisis, a Movement, by David Graeber. Allen Lane, 2013, 352 pp., $26 (hardcover)

The case for the defense of the spirit of 2011 should be overwhelming. Groups of activists around the world came together, determinedly but also nonviolently, not just to protest at the criminality of the banks and their backers, but also to put into practice another way. So why did it dissipate?