This wide-ranging and comparative text review the major theoretical and substantive debates on social Europe, providing a valuable dual focus on European society and on individual societies, and placing Europe in its wider global context. The five countries used as primary case studies are Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden, with an additional comparative assessment of the newly democratic societies of Eastern Europe. Wickham addresses questions of space, race, gender and the life cycle, demonstrating the continued importance of national difference within Europe, and assessing the extent to which we can nevertheless meaningfully speak of European society as a unified whole.