The Civil Sphere - Tapa blanda

The Civil Sphere offers grand theorizing in ways that remind us of both what we are and what we can be. Jeffrey Alexander offers sociology at least a place from which it may begin again. (The New Republic)

The Civil Sphere is [a] crowning achievement ... that masterfully reconnects the normative and the empirical in ways that fill an important gap in our cultural discourse today ... A work of great importance, an enduring contribution to the literature on civil society and democracy. Its influence will be felt in political, cultural, and theoretical sociology for decades to come. (American Journal of Sociology)

A genuine masterpiece ... America's best, and best-known, social theorist defends the project of civil society and its utopia of democratic inclusion (not only as an ideal, but also as an idea, which is already partly institutionalized.)

This subtle and hugely informative work ... offers not only acute theoretical discussion of the civil society concept, but also generous and expansive accounts of social movements of race and gender, and the theory and practice of multiculturalism and assimilation (two chapters on the Jewish experience are especially compelling). (Contemporary Sociology)

The Civil Sphere offers a bold and original thesis about the critically important role that civil societies play in Western democracies. Although I will challenge Alexander's thesis, it is important to state at the outset that The Civil Sphere is a valuable book packed with rich social histories, lively engagements with ancient and contemporary theories, and novel interpretations. There is much to be learned here about the historic and sociological nature of racial, gender, and ethnic oppressions, and the struggles waged to over throw them. (Aldon Morris, Sociological Quarterly)

The Civil Sphere is truly a masterful and groundbreaking work, the rare and ambitious kind that does not just contribute to one of the many ongoing conversations in sociology, but brings them together and reorients them. It will undoubtedly confirm and reinforce Jeffrey Alexander's reputation as one of the foremost sociological theorists of our day. Indeed, reading The Civil Sphere generated the same sense of intellectual excitement that I experienced the first time I read Durkheim or Weber or Habermas (and for similar reasons: The Civil Sphere addresses big and important questions about freedom, inequality, and solidarity.)

The Civil Sphere is... rich in its empirical descriptions and resourceful and suggestive in terms of its conceptual and theoretical framework. The book will challenge and shape the discussions in cultural sociology for many years to come. (Cultural Sociology)

From the point of view of contemporary sociology, one of its most distinctive and welcome features is its judicious use of sociological theory and data to advance a particular vision of justice. As such it is a book about the need to place justice at the centre of the sociological enterprise. From the point of view of contemporary critical social theory, one of its most distinctive and welcome features is its insistence that good social theories have a disclosing power that is practically efficacious. As such it is also a book about the illuminating power of theory. Its most significant contribution, however, is its presentation of a strong vision of civil society and the case it makes for taking up the project of civil repair. By arguing persuasively that the civil sphere is a great achievement of Western modernity, and by encouraging us to work towards its realization, the book itself is a remarkable achievement. (Philosophy and Social Criticisms)

The Civil Sphere is a major work that is going to change the state of the debate in many fields ... It aims to provide a new theory of contemporary society, based on a new interpretation of solidarity [that] is a radical challenge to political economy. (European Journal of Social Theory)

A tour de force of sociology, political science, and philosophy, [its] repercussions might be felt for decades to come... This is a book worth reading by both social scientists and the general public, for its persuasiveness can inspire us to imagine that another world is possible (Mediterranean Quarterly)

What binds societies together and how can these social orders be structured in a fair way? Jeffrey C. Alexander's masterful work, The Civil Sphere, addresses this central paradox of modern life. Feelings for others - the solidarity that is ignored or underplayed by theories of power or self-interest - are at the heart of this novel inquiry into the meeting place between normative theories of what we think we should do and empirical studies of who we actually are. Solidarity, Alexander demonstrates, creates inclusive and exclusive social structures and shows how they can be repaired. It is not perfect, it is not absolute, and the horrors which occur in its lapses have been seen all too frequently in the forms of discrimination, genocide, and war. Despite its worldly flaws and contradictions, however, solidarity and the project of civil society remain our best hope: the antidote to every divisive institution, every unfair distribution, every abusive and dominating hierarchy. This grand, sweeping statement and rigorous empirical investigation is a major contribution to our thinking about the real but ideal world in which we all reside.