In these essays Gellner strives to understand the religions of nationalism, communism and democracy returning again and again to the basic values of the liberal: social tolerance, rational criticism, human decency and justice.

Preface, Acknowledgments, 1. Prepare to meet thy doom: A sermon on the ambivalences of progress, reason, liberty, equality and fraternity, 2. Myth, ideology and revolution, 3. Democracy and industrialization, 4. Contemporary thought and politics, 5. Behind the barricades at LSE, 6. The panther and the dove: Reflections on rebelliousness and its milieux, 7. How to live in anarchy, 8. The concept of a story, 9. Our current sense of history, 10. Ernst Kolman: or, knowledge and communism, 11. Scale and nation, 12. The pluralist anti-levellers of Prague, 13. The dangers of tolerance, 14. On democracy in France, Sources, Index of names, Index of subjects