Hegel and Modern Society

The book does deserve five stars--but there is a need to call attention to the preface of "Hegel and Modern Society," which is absent from the free, searchable content available here. Professor Taylor candidly puts it, in the preface, that this book is substantially the same as the various chapters in his excellent "Hegel" dealing with Hegel's relation to contemporary society. In short, if you own a volume of Taylor's "Hegel" you already have the content of this book--you needn't buy both.

Hegel is notoriously difficult to understand. When an exposition of his philosophy, entitled "The Secret of Hegel", was published in the 19th century, a critic accused its author of "keeping the secret." Charles Taylor, by contrast, without academic arrogance--in fact, with characteristic humility--makes brilliantly accessible this abstruse philosopher. Taylor eloquently extracts the essence and logic of Hegel's arguments; and shows the relationships between Hegel's metaphysics and social philosophy; thereby revealing to the reader the whole system of Hegel's philosophy, rather than its isolated components. Along the way, he dispels many of the false myths that surround Hegel's often quoted but rarely read philosophies. And not only does Taylor make sense of Hegel in the philosopher's own historical and intellectual contexts, but, as the title of the book implies, Taylor shows the relevance that Hegel's ideas still hold today. This is a gem of a book for people studying Hegel, for people studying philosophy, political science, or history. Highly recommended.