"An exceptional reprise of the welfare state experience, the author's sociological approach provides the means for gauging the adequacy of social policy over time and offering projections about the future... Highly recommended." · Choice

"This book renders accessible a rich set of essays on the past and future development of the welfare state in Europe... and is essential reading." · from the Foreword

"The author belongs to a handful of leading German sociologists. While his international reputation is undisputed, much of his work is not available in English. This collection is an excellent introduction to his work that combines systematic and historical approaches, is highly theoretical (also with respect to the history of social theory), but at the same time based on a profound knowledge of empirical material.." · J?rgen Kocka, Zentrum f?r Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam

"Reagan, Thatcher, New Zealand, austerity, Bush, more Bush, endless financial crises. If we are as shortsighted as Walter Benjamin's famous "angel of history," we stare at the wreckage at our feet, while the "storm of progress" propels us backwards into the future. But Franz-Xaver Kaufmann's angel of history flies above the storm and looks beyond the wreckage, giving us a multi-dimensional, panoramic view across nations, shifting theories, and eras -- from their 19th century inceptions, through their mid-20th-century "Golden Age," and into their turn-of-the-millennium retrenchment and internationalization. If we want to reclaim our sense of solidarity and rebuild our systems for insuring social and economic well-being, this collection of carefully selected, translated, and revised essays is the place to start." · Stephan Leibfried, Universit?t Bremen

While social welfare programs, often inspired by international organizations, are spreading throughout the world, the more far-reaching notion of governmental responsibility for the basic well-being of all members of a political society is not, although it remains a feature of Europe and the former British Commonwealth. The welfare state in the European sense is not simply an administrative arrangement of various measures of social protection but a political project embedded in distinct cultural trad...]]>