In a well-reasoned and thought-provoking polemic, respected political theorist Nadia Urbinati explores a profound shift in the ideology of individualism, from the ethical nineteenth-century standard, in which each person cooperates with others as equals for the betterment of their lives and the community, to the contemporary “I don’t give a damn” maxim. Identifying this “tyranny of the moderns” as the most radical risk that modern democracy currently faces, the author examines the critical necessity of reestablishing the role of the individual citizen as a free and equal agent of democratic society.

Nadia Urbinati is Kyriakos Tsakopoulos Professor of Political Theory and Hellenic Studies in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University and co-editor of Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory. She lives in New York City.