This is the most authoritative picture to date of what the British people and their politicians really think about the fundamentals of politics. Based on new and revealing survey data, it presents a wide-ranging analysis of British attitudes to civil, political, and social rights. The study uncovers two broad "macro-dimensions" of principle--liberty and equality--which underlie a large number of more specific principles and shape people's responses to many practical issues. Controversially, it claims that commitments to liberty and equality tend to run together--only the least educated treat...

This volume provides an outstanding survey of the major political philosophers of the twentieth century.

Providing a comprehensive discussion of the polymathic writer and thinker Ernest Gellner, this book presents a lucid exposition of his thought, making clear both his major contributions to the diverse areas in which he worked and the underlying consistency and unity of his thought. Examined is how Gellner's analysis of the social, economic, and cognitive forms intrinsic to modernity carries forward the work of Max Weber and Karl Popper and also enables him to develop a profound and original philosophy of science which is at the same time a political philosophy.