Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society And Its Rivals

As Ernest Gellner shows in this path-breaking book, the most significant difference between communism (and other totalitarian ideologies) and Western liberalism is the existence of the civil society--the intermediary institutions like trade unions, political parties, religions, pressure groups and clubs which fill the gap between the family and the state.

Ernest Gellner is William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at Cambridge and Professorial Fellow at King's College. For the last three years he has also been Research Professor at the Central European University, Prague.