communist authoritarianism and rehabilitated the western bourgeoisie's democratic credentials. It is worth recalling that among those who did attempt to explore the roots of totalitarianism (Arendt, Sartre) there were none, it would seem, whose work could surpass his fame and appeal. The reasons for that outcome, I suggest, go beyond his false optimism about human freedom. More fundamentally, his anti-utopianism, his critique of determinism, prepared the ground for what we must face in the post-modern era when political ideologies are malleable. The general relevance, therefore, is the challenging nature of his insistence that liberty is not to be contested with other social goals; a message which is not going to go down sympathetically with those trying to eradicate injustices grounded in differences of race or sex and those engaged in building a better green world.