These essays, by widely respected scholars in fields ranging from social and political theory to historical sociology and cultural studies, illuminate the significance of the public/private distinction for an increasingly wide range of ...

The western utopia has both classical and Judaeo-Christian roots. From the Greeks came the form of the ideal city, based on reason, from Jews and Christians the idea of deliverance through a messiah and the culmination of history in the millennium. The Greek conception placed utopia in an ideal space, the Christian conception in an ideal time. The modern utopia, dating from Thomas More's Utopia (1516), drew upon both these traditions but added something distinctive of its own. Following More, the (...) modern utopia has developed as a literary form whose closest relative is the novel. This, I argue, is its great strength. Unlike the abstract utopias of social and political philosophy, such as Marxism or anarchism, the `concrete utopia' of writers such as Edward Bellamy, William Morris and H. G. Wells paints `pleasing pictures of daily life' which both impel us to desire the good society and give us the tools by which to assess it. It is in this respect that utopia - and its mirror-image, the anti-utopia - developed as a distinct literary genre, separating it from other forms of picturing the ideal society in both east and west. (shrink)

`Europe' and national identity are not necessarily in conflict, as the examples of Spain, Greece, Germany and Italy in their different ways suggest. The same may be true of some of the constituent nations of the British Isles - the Scots, the Irish, and the Welsh. Europe however poses a particular problem for the English, for longstanding political and cultural reasons. This article explores the different relations of the different parts of the United Kingdom to an increasingly unified Europe. It (...) suggests that, just as there have been many `Europes', so there have been many different ways of relating to it, depending on particular historical and political circumstances. Of all the people of the United Kingdom it is the English who have the greatest difficulty in coming to terms with a future in Europe. (shrink)

Although England has a rich tradition of social and political thought, sociology does not figure strongly in this tradition. Several influential accounts-such as those by Noel Annan, Philip Abrams, and Perry Anderson-exist to explain this fact. I examine these accounts and, while largely agreeing with the explanations, question whether we should accept the authors' conclusions. In particular, we need to ask whether England was so different from other countries in this respect. Moreover, even if sociology was weak in England, does (...) this mean that the contribution of English social theory was also weak? What alternative traditions of social thought might exist? In examining the English case, we may get some insight not just into the "peculiarities of the English" but also into the way in which the history of sociology has come to be written and into some of the assumptions underlying the nature of sociology as a discipline. (shrink)

In the wake of the Iraq war of 2003, and in response to the European reaction to the war, a number of prominent European intellectuals launched a new debate on Europe's identity, and in particular the extent to which it differed from American identity. The debate was sparked by a newspaper article by Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, which was circulated to several other intellectuals for comment. The Europe-wide debate which ensued — in which several Americans joined — provides a (...) revealing snap-shot of European opinion on the question of Europe's identity. It illustrates in particular the dangers as well as the seductions of seeing that identity mainly in terms of a contrast with America, putatively to the advantage of the Europeans. This article argues that such a contrast fuels an anti-Americanism that is disabling to Europe and conceals many significant — and less selfflattering — aspects of the European inheritance. (shrink)

Gellner is mostly known for his theory of nationalism, which he saw as antithetical to the principle of the multinational, hierarchical, empire. But like his LSE colleague Elie Kedourie, Gellner was fascinated by empire. In his last, posthumously published work, Language and Solitude, Gellner returned to the region of his childhood, the former Habsburg Empire, to explore its impact on the work of Malinowski and Wittgenstein. This essay will reflect on Gellner’s thoughts about empire, and the way in which he (...) assessed their necessary disappearance – as he thought – in the modern world. (shrink)

General and comparative studies of empire – like those of revolution – often suffer from insufficient attention to chronology. Time expresses itself both in the form that empires occur, often in succession to each other – the Roman, the Holy Roman, the Spanish, etc. – and, equally, in an awareness that this succession links empires in a genealogical sense, as part of a family of empires. This article explores the implications of taking time seriously, so that empires are not considered (...) simply as like ‘cases’ of a general phenomenon of empire but are treated as both ‘the same and different’. Concentrating on the European empires since the time of Rome, the article shows the extent to which empires were conscious of each other, seeking both to imitate admired features as well as to escape from those thought less desirable. It also shows the difference between ancient and modern empires, considered not so much as different types as in the differences caused by their location in different points in historical time. Comparative studies of empire, the article concludes, must pay attention to both continuity and change, both similarity and difference. (shrink)

Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West. Washington, DC: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1996, pp. 448. 0?8018?5223?4. Richard Jenkins, Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and Explorations. London: Sage Publications, 1997, pp. 194. 0?8039?7677?1. Kenan Malik, The Meaning of Race: Race, History and Culture in Western Society. London: Macmillan, 1996, pp. 323. 0?333?62857?8.