'This book breaks new intellectual ground showing how the modern welfare state has served as the midwife for globalization. It offers a powerful warning to those who take globalization for granted. What the midwife nutured, she may also help strangle. In the best tradition of social science. "Limits" demonstrates how mastery of the details illuminates the big picture of a world poised between renewal and disaster.' Hugh Heclo, George Mason University, Virginia 'This is an important book in three ways. It is synoptic in providing and interrelated explanation of the post-war rise of welfare capitalism, the pressures of globalization and subsequent welfare state reforem. It is synthetic in its sensitive interweaving of a wide range of literature. And it is illuminating in its depth analysis especially of the US and German cases.' David Soskice, Duke University, North Carolina 'By locating the dilemmas of contemporary social in a broader context at once historical, comparatrive and cultural, this wide-ranging volume sets out the challenges facing policy-makers and scholars. The authors show that globalization is an opportunity and a threat. All interessted in the fate of welfare states and of open world markets will want to have this book on their shelves.' Peter A. Hall, Harvard University