The Philosopher in the Machine Age

What happens when Socrates visits the land of skyscrapers, salesmen, and self-made success? In Plato’s American Republic, Douglas Woodruff imagines the gadfly of Athens on a lecture tour across the United States, only to find himself bewildered by a society driven by speed, industry, and relentless optimism.

Written in pitch-perfect imitation of Platonic dialogue, this razor-sharp satire follows Socrates as he reflects on the curious gods of the New World—Progress, Public Opinion, and the Almighty Car. With irony as his instrument and philosophy as his guide, he navigates a culture that celebrates mass production, mistrusts reflection, and mistakes conformity for freedom. Whether pondering the rituals of a luncheon club in Iowa, the mysticism of Prohibition, or the tyranny of democracy itself, Woodruff’s Socrates offers insights that feel uncannily prophetic a century later.

Plato’s American Republic is not simply a comic pastiche; it is a profound reckoning with what modern democracies gain—and what they lose—when they exchange the examined life for the efficient one. At once playful and piercing, this forgotten gem of political and cultural satire invites readers to reflect, with laughter and unease, on their own entanglement with the very forces it critiques.