The Health of Nations : Society and Law beyond the State

Globalisation challenges our traditional social structures, with international systems such as the European Union, taking power over the power of states and governments. We must rethink the ideas which have made our national systems work. Allott seeks to develop these ideas in new ways to meet the new global challenges.

The human world is changing. Old social structures are being overwhelmed by forces of social transformation which are sweeping across political and cultural frontiers. A social animal is becoming the social species. The animal that lives in packs and herds (family, corporation, nation, state) is becoming a member of a human society which is the society of all human beings, the society of all societies. The age-old problems of social life - religious, philosophical, moral, political, legal, economic - must now be addressed at the level of the whole species, and the level where all cultures and traditions meet and will contribute to an exhilarating and hazardous new form of human self-evolving. In this book Philip Allott explores the social and legal implications and potentialities of these developments in the light of the general theory of society and law which is proposed in his groundbreaking Eunomia: New Order for a New World.