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Uncivil Society: The Perils of Pluralism and the Making of Modern Liberalism

Uncivil Society: The Perils of Pluralism and the Making of Modern Liberalism. By Richard Boyd. Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. 351p. $75.00 cloth, $25.00 paper. In his book, Richard Boyd offers a thoughtful reappraisal of the relation between the idea of civil society and the tradition of liberal political thought. He questions the view held by many contemporary political theorists that the development of civil society, understood as the realm of what Tocqueville called “voluntary associations” mediating between the individual and the state, is a necessary condition for the maintenance of liberal democracy. Against this position, Boyd argues that an earlier tradition of liberal thought was justifiably suspicious of the potential for subpolitical social groups—especially, but not limited to, intolerant religious sects—to undermine rather than support liberal institutions. In a series of well-argued chapters, he traces the trajectory of the connected ideas of civil society and social pluralism from initial suspicion to perhaps uncritical acceptance.