The Roots of Radicalism: Tradition, the Public Sphere, and Early Nineteenth-century Social Movements. By Craig J. Calhoun. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Pp. xii+425. $81.00 (cloth); $25.00 (paper).

2013 ◽  
Vol 119 (1) ◽  
pp. 254-256
Author(s):  
Rhys H. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

scholarly journals The Public Sphere in the Field of Power

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Calhoun
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Public Sphere

In this article I ask (1) whether the ways in which the early bourgeois public sphere was structured—precisely by exclusion—are instructive for considering its later development, (2) how a consideration of the social foundations of public life calls into question abstract formulations of it as an escape from social determination into a realm of discursive reason, (3) to what extent “counterpublics” may offer useful accommodations to failures of larger public spheres without necessarily becoming completely attractive alternatives, and (4) to what extent considering the organization of the public sphere as a field might prove helpful in analyzing differentiated publics, rather than thinking of them simply as parallel but each based on discrete conditions. These considerations are informed by an account of the way that the public sphere developed as a concrete ideal and an object of struggle in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain.

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