Ritual is usually understood as pointing to some essence beyond the ritual act itself. This ambitious interdisciplinary study offers a convincing challenge to this understanding. The authors begin by seeking to explain how the conventional idea arose in the first place. They locate its origin in a p[...]

Adam Seligman, one of our most important social thinkers, continues the incisive critique of modernity he began in his previously acclaimed "The Idea of Civil Society" and "The Problem of Trust". In this provocative new work of social philosophy, Seligman evaluates modernity's wager, namely, the gam[...]