This book by the famous French historian, sociologist and political philosopher sums up his trilogy analysing the crisis of democracy as a social system of society. The author shows a synthetic picture of the equality phenomenon as the key idea of the political culture in modern democracies, the basis of fair distribution of public goods, and the condition of personal freedom. Stating the growth and explaining the causes of various kinds of inequalities, he puts forward his programme for breaking the deadlock, proposing to rethink the conceptual field of equality in terms of individual uniqueness, reciprocity and communitarianism of people. In other words, he scales up the sociopolitical dimension in progress towards equality and active solidarity when the failure of the institutional mechanisms of the state-benefactor become evident. P. Rosanvallon’s concept of equality allows, as he puts it, ‘to view the utopia of a society of equals as something completely realistic’.