What is the nature of our current societies? Do we see a clash of civilizations, or the end of history? The advent of globalization, or the birth of the network society? Are we witnessing the emergence of a risk society, or the advent of the knowledge society? More fundamentally, is society an ideological construct that should be abandoned?

Coming into English from the Latin term societas via Old French societe, the etymology of society, in the sense of a system adopted by a group of co-existing individuals for mutually beneficial purposes, can be traced back at least to the...