A Communitarian Defense of Liberalism: Emile Durkheim and Contemporary Social Theory (Stanford Series in Philosophy)

The book "Community, Tradition, and the Individual" by Cladis provides a timely reading of Emile Durkheim that captures the benefits associated with both liberalism and communitarianism.

The author explores fundamental issues concerning freedom, rights, authority, public moral education, the relation between the public and private, and the role of social criticism in democracies.

Isolating the merits and liabilities of both liberal and communitarian theories, Cladis demonstrates that we need not be in a position of having to choose between them.

This book is an interesting and provocative reading of Durkheim that sheds new light on the contemporary relevance of his work and offers new and complex material for the debate over social theory.

With the novel insight that liberalism is a viable moral tradition and not the mere antithesis of tradition, Durkheim resolved a problem that had plagued Descartes, Kant, and Rousseau.

This book is well-written and lively, making it an essential read for anyone interested in social theory, political science, or religious studies.