Michael Walzer (collected by David Miller) Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, xxi+337pp., £18.99, ISBN: 978-0300118162

This is a valuable collection of essays. Michael Walzer is one of the most important contemporary political theorists, but his major book-length studies of general interest date from a generation ago – Just and Unjust Wars (1977) and Spheres of Justice (1983). Since then he has produced a series of short monographs, several based on his prestigious lecture series, but his main focus has been on the specialized field of Jewish political thought and traditions, and his contributions to the wider discourse have been in the form of scholarly papers and chapters, as well as many op-ed pieces in Dissent, the democratic socialist journal that he co-edits. The best of his papers on war were collected in Arguing About War (2004), and David Miller has now pulled together a further 18 essays on political theory more generally – though there is still a substantial international component to these papers, with important essays on humanitarian intervention and the War on Terror. One of these papers is published here for the first time, and also reproduced is the very revelatory interview Walzer gave to the online journal Imprints in 2003. As well, a bibliography of Walzer's writings is provided.

Why is Walzer an important theorist? The key to his appeal for this reviewer was provided, inadvertently, by Jon Elster when he referred to Walzer as a ‘phenomenologist of the moral life’ (Elster, 1992, p. 14). This was intended to be mildly disparaging, to suggest that Walzer is not a real political philosopher, someone who digs deep to get to the truth, but rather a thinker who is satisfied with working on surface phenomena, exploring moral dilemmas when and where they appear. Turn the implicit minus here into a plus and you have the key to Walzer's appeal. Running through these essays is a rejection of liberal political philosophy in favour of liberal (in a European context, social democratic) political theory – Walzer has little time for abstract constructs such as Rawls's ‘original position’ or Habermas's ‘ideal speech situation’, or for the hypothetical examples beloved of authors favoured by journals such as Philosophy and Public Affairs. Attempts to resolve political arguments via the production of philosophical truths are, he would argue, not simply doomed to fail, they are positively harmful because they draw attention and brainpower away from the real political problems and foster an anti-democratic frame of mind; ever more elaborate investigations into the hypothetical problems of an egalitarian society should be no substitute for political engagement devoted to attacking current inequalities and injustices. The findings of philosophers should not be substituted for the outcomes of democratic politics.

What all this means in practice for Walzer is a very social democratic version of liberalism. He is firmly situated within both the anti-communist American left – a proud tradition to which many of the Company of Critics, such as C. Wright Mills and Michael Harrington, belong (Walzer, 1988) – and the socialist wing of the Zionist movement in the United States. This is a location that confuses many European critics, who pick up on Walzer's Zionism without recognizing that his radical commitments lead him to condemn many Israeli policies, while wholeheartedly defending the right of Israel to exist. Similarly, his nuanced response to 9/11 – no blank cheque for the Bush administration but a willingness to support them when they did the right thing – was not appreciated by those who see the world in black and white, but was wholly consistent with the approach he has taken throughout his career. His classic essay on ‘Dirty Hands’ (the only pre-1980 essay included in this collection) contains more wisdom on the War on Terror and the debates on torture than any other 17 pages I know.

The Zionist and the explicitly American dimensions of Walzer's work makes him particularly sensitive to issues of nationality, identity and multiculturalism (all topics discussed brilliantly in this collection), but his democratic socialism ensures that he leaves some room for universal values; his account of when humanitarian intervention in defence of basic human rights is legitimate, even possibly obligatory, is simply masterly. At the heart of his political theory are real people living real lives, and, ultimately, abstractions such as the nation have to take second place to this reality; by the same token his socialism makes him willing to countenance state-action at a level that would offend many liberals, but always contained within the appropriate sphere and never at the expense of human individuality.

Each one of these essays merits re-reading, and some are of seminal importance. Moreover – and here is another difference between Walzer and many contemporary political philosophers – they are a joy to read. He is one of the great modern political writers, up there with George Orwell and very few others. In this collection David Miller has chosen well, and his introduction is brief, lucid and helpful. One very minor gripe; it would have been good to have had the date of these essays noted somewhere in the body of each work or the table of contents – the information is there but only in the list of published works. A point for the paperback perhaps?