In this collection of his essays and reviews, Ronald Beiner probes the boundaries of our social world and develops his own intellectual challenge to liberalism in a critical review of contemporary thinkers.

Ronald Beiner is professor of political science at the University of Toronto. His book What's the Matter with Liberalism? was awarded the Macpherson Prize in 1994 by the Canadian Political Science Association and the University of Toronto Press.

'There are few people I read today who more acutely understand the challenges of liberal social orders than Professor Beiner. Only Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, it seems to me, provide as compelling analyses of the challenges before us as Beiner. Of course, that is to put him in extremely high company indeed.'

W. James Booth, Department of Political Science, Vanderbilt University:

'There are few people I read today who more acutely understand the challenges of liberal social orders than Professor Beiner. Only Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, it seems to me, provide as compelling analyses of the challenges before us as Beiner. Of course, that is to put him in extremely high company indeed.'

Michael J. Sandel, Department of Government, Harvard University, and author of Democracy's Discontent:

'There are few people I read today who more acutely understand the challenges of liberal social orders than Professor Beiner. Only Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, it seems to me, provide as compelling analyses of the challenges before us as Beiner. Of course, that is to put him in extremely high company indeed.'

W. James Booth:

'Philosophy in a Time of Lost Spirit is a tour de force of critical engagements with most major contemporary political philosophers: Rorty, Sandel, Walzer, Habermas, and Foucault. Much of its richness is in the fine grain of these encounters; those drawn to it for its broad themes should also follow Beiner into the detail of his arguements. The rewards are many, for he displays a remarkable and rare capacity to attend seriously to positions he ultimately rejects, and his essays are as much an education in the act of philosophizing as they are in their various specific topics.'