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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2005
Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education. By Danielle S. Allen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. 254p. $25.00 cloth.
It may seem odd, given its title, but this is a book about friendship. The central problem of American democracy, according to Danielle Allen, is a lack of trust among citizens. For democracy to be stable, its citizens must feel confident that the obligations and opportunities of society are shared equitably. Yet majority rule is a breeding ground for distrust, particularly in a polity marked by race. Without trust, there is nothing to bind the minority and the majority together. The task of this book is to find ways for citizens to trust one another in these unsettled times. Doing so, Allen argues, requires developing habits of political friendship. The challenge of democratic politics, ironically, is to turn strangers into friends.