The increasing individualism of modern western society has been accompanied by an enduring nostalgia for the idea of community. Gerard Delanty begins this stimulating introduction to the concept with an analysis of the origins of the idea of community in western utopian thought, and as an imagined primitive state equated with traditional societies. In today's society, we are no longer bounded by place, and instead belong to multiple communities based on religion, nationalism, ethnicity, life-styles and gender. Delanty provides thought-provoking introduction to the contested and ever-changing conception of what constitutes a community.