Description: François Ewald's The Birth of Solidarity--first published in French in 1986 and appearing here in English for the first time--is one of the most important historical and philosophical studies of the rise of the welfare state.
Review Quotes: "Ingenious and trenchant, François Ewald's The Birth of Solidarity offers an arresting insight into the politicization of probability. Abounding in legal and historical detail, the book deftly demonstrates how industrial power integrated French society by assuming the risk of accidents. Ewald's critical theory of the rules of judicial decision-making is a tour de force. His critique of law brilliantly unveils the birth of the twentieth-century insurantial society that is now itself at risk."--Bernard E. Harcourt, author of "The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order"