Overview

Celebrated thinker Rowan Williams explores the shared hopes and burdens that make solidarity possible. From its use as a rallying cry by the labour movement to its central place in struggles for racial justice, the idea of solidarity is often invoked as the answer to inequality and conflict. And yet, as both a term and a practice, solidarity is tantalizingly slippery. We are encouraged to ‘show solidarity’, but how can we truly realize it? As Rowan Williams argues in this impassioned book, solidarity is not something fixed to be achieved, but a process of mutual recognition. From its origins in the French Revolution to the Nueva Solidaridad in Mexico City and the Solidarnosc movement in Poland, Williams traces solidarity’s myriad forms through its deep influence on Catholic social thought, its transformation in the hands of thinkers like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jan Patocka and the creative struggle so central to the writings of Gillian Rose. He reveals solidarity to be a constant exercise in self-scrutiny and dialogue in which we find that true recognition lies not in asserting that others are ‘just like us,’ but rather in affirming their claim to be ‘fully themselves’. It is in this work of recognition, this possibility of communion, that true hope can be found.

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9781399431514

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Reviews

A magisterial vision of true comradeship. * Slavoj Žižek author of Quantum History * A treasure trove of wisdom and insight. Its quiet optimism brings, in darkened days, a guiding light which gives the reader hope, despite the encircling gloom, that we might learn to live together with growing understanding, awareness, and a renewed sense of self. * A. N. Wilson author of Goethe: His Faustian Life * In this pioneering book, Williams argues for solidarity as a genuinely new ideal and something that cannot be reduced to some combination of compassion and communalism. It is at once a window on the human condition and justice in action. This is vintage Williams. * James B. Murphy, Professor of Government, Dartmouth College, USA and author of How to Think Politically *

Rowan Williams, in this pioneering book, argues that the ideal of solidarity is genuinely new and uniquely captures a range of ideas about selfhood, human community, and the unity of thought and action. Solidarity, as Williams shows, cannot be reduced to some combination of compassion and communalism – it is at once a window on the human condition and a virtue of justice in action. Williams is especially brilliant in describing the challenges that solidarity poses to the cultures of identity politics and human rights. In his nuanced analysis of solidarity, Williams brings to bear philosophical anthropology, history, sociology, theology, phenomenology, and liturgics as well as a global perspective drawing on thinkers from South Africa, Central and Eastern Europe. In short, this is vintage Williams. * James Murphy, Professor of Government, Dartmouth College, USA * As a Christian, Williams out-performs any Marxist notion of solidarity known to me. The only thing I didn’t like about the book is that it caused me a sleepless night. I couldn’t stop following the detailed analyses, which grows gradually into a magisterial vision of true comradeship. * Slavoj Žižek *

Author Information

Rowan Williams is a former Archbishop of Canterbury, from 2002 to 2012 and until 2020 Master of Magdelene College at the University of Cambridge. He is contributing writer to The New Statesman.

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