ABSTRACT
The project of a liberal society, focused as it was on the idea of human autonomy, was universal and without boundaries in principle. As such it was truly Utopian. A global society, inclusive of all individuals in an egalitarian way, seemed a rather abstract and far-fetched imagery. In historical reality, indeed, the more concrete visions of societal renewal, as they were held by the promoters of the project, were much more limited and very well bounded. A historical sociology of the first century of modernity, so to speak, can rest on the analysis of two main social phenomena of the nineteenth century. First, the socially dangerous openness of modernity was well recognized. As a consequence, the foundations of such a society were only very incompletely elaborated in practice, and means were developed to contain the modern project (Chapter 3).
