As the countries of East-Central Europe struggle to create liberal democracy and the United States and other Western nations attempt to rediscover their own tarnished civil institutions, Adam Seligman identifies the neglect of the idea of "civil society" as a central concern common to both cultures today. Two centuries after its origins in the Enlightenment, the idea of civil society is being revived to provide an answer to the question of how individuals can pursue their own interests while preserving the greater good of society and, similarly, how society can advance the interests of the individuals who comprise it. However, as Seligman shows, the erosion of the very moral beliefs and philosophical assumptions upon which the idea of civil society was founded makes its revival much more difficult than is generally recognized.
Idea Of Civil Society
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One of the merits of Adam Seligman's wide-ranging, probing, and deeply reflective inquiry into the history and uses of the idea of civil society is that it is concerned explicitly with identifying the ambiguities in its applications to contemporary societies . . . In one aspect Mr. "Seligman's book is an exploration of the idea of civil society in all its contemporary and historical ironies and ambiguities, one that is richly learned and subtly reasoned. In another it is a question mark over the very idea of a civil society. -- John Gray, The New York Times Book Review
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"A most exciting, original, and well documented presentation of the idea of civil society in the Western--in the broadest sense of the word, including Eastern Europe--historical experience and political tradition."--S. N. Eisenstadt, The Hoover Institute and Hebrew University
"Seligman argues his case in an attractively open manner and with great range, both in terms of ideas and institutions. His is the best book on the subject at the moment: lucid, high-powered, convincing, and approachable."--John A. Hall, McGill University
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Much like today, the emergence of the idea of civil society in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the result of a crisis in social order and a breakdown of existing paradigms of the idea of order. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
civil society rested, civil society tradition, regenerate saints, metaphysical equality, representative vision, ethical representation, ethical entity, civil society idea, moral affections, natural law doctrines, holy commonwealth, ethical space, natural law tradition Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, East-Central Europe, Scottish Enlightenment, West European, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Adams, Adam Smith, Charles Taylor, Los Angeles, North American, World War, Adam Ferguson, Eastern Europe, Max Weber, David Hume, Great Awakening, Hannah Arendt, Idea of Freedom, Invisible Hand, Hugo Grotius, John Dunn, Protestant Reformation, Cambridge Platonists, Crown Heights New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Much like today, the emergence of the idea of civil society in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the result of a crisis in social order and a breakdown of existing paradigms of the idea of order. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
civil society rested, civil society tradition, regenerate saints, metaphysical equality, representative vision, ethical representation, ethical entity, civil society idea, moral affections, natural law doctrines, holy commonwealth, ethical space, natural law tradition Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, East-Central Europe, Scottish Enlightenment, West European, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Adams, Adam Smith, Charles Taylor, Los Angeles, North American, World War, Adam Ferguson, Eastern Europe, Max Weber, David Hume, Great Awakening, Hannah Arendt, Idea of Freedom, Invisible Hand, Hugo Grotius, John Dunn, Protestant Reformation, Cambridge Platonists, Crown Heights New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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This book cites 100
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100
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- Philosophy of Right (Dover Philosophical Classics) by Georg W. F. Hegel on 4 pages
- From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology by Max Weber in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition by John Greville Agard Pocock in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Civil Society: Old Images, New Visions by John Keane in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Ferguson: An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) by Adam Ferguson on page 30, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
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- Civil Society and Government. by Nancy L. Rosenblum on 6 pages
- Entangled Evolutions: Media and Democratization in Eastern Europe by Peter Gross on 6 pages
- The Moral Circle and the Self: Chinese and Western Approaches by Kim-chong Chong on 6 pages
- Civil Society: The Underpinnings of American Democracy (Civil Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives) by Brian O'Connell on 4 pages
- Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society. by Simone Chambers on 4 pages
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