Download or read book Conditions of Liberty written by Ernest Gellner and published by Penguin Group USA. This book was released on 1996 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A distinguished scholar's provocative analysis of the political forces transforming post-Communist Eastern Europe. What is filling the void left by the fall of Communism in the ex-Soviet Union and Eastern Europe? In this groundbreaking book, one of Europe's most distinguished social anthropologists addresses this question through an examination of the idea of the civil society, which is rooted in the Enlightenment's belief that society can be organized rationally.