On Toleration

By Michael Walzer

Book Overview

What kinds of political arrangements enable people from different national, racial, religious, or ethnic groups to live together in peace? In this book one of the most influential political theorists of our time discusses the politics of toleration. Michael Walzer examines five "regimes of toleration"--from multinational empires to immigrant societies--and describes the strengths and weaknesses of each regime, as well as the varying forms of toleration and exclusion each fosters. Walzer shows how power, class, and gender interact with religion, race, and ethnicity in the different regimes and discusses how toleration works--and how it should work--in multicultural societies like the United States.

Walzer offers an eloquent defense of toleration, group differences, and pluralism, moving quickly from theory to practical issues, concrete examples, and hard questions. His concluding argument is focused on the contemporary United States and represents an effort to join and advance the debates about "culture war," the "politics of difference," and the "disuniting of America." Although he takes a grim view of contemporary politics, he is optimistic about the possibility of coexistence: cultural pluralism and a common citizenship can go together, he suggests, in a strong and egalitarian democracy.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300076002
• ISBN13: 9780300076004
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A good description of toleration

This book's strength lies in its many examples and systematic structure. The topic is engaging, and it will keep you reading. The fact that it was begotten out of a lecture series helps to keep it brief and not overly wordy. Worth the read if you are interested in the relationship between different groups.