Public life is dominated from time to time by media storms around integrity. The behaviour of elected politicians like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson has led many to decry the deterioration in standards and the lack of integrity in public life. But what is integrity, and where does our concern with integrity in public life come from? In this book Martin Albrow argues that integrity has been an essential component of the rise of the West and a key feature that distinguishes the West from other civilizations. He traces the idea of integrity back to its roots in Ancient Greece and Rome, where philosophical debates gave us the special meaning of integrity: the idea that the unity of any entity, human beings included, depends on the adherence to rules outside of it. He then follows the story of integrity through the mediaeval Christian period up to the present day. By the time we reach the twenty-first century, integrity has become a free-floating signifier that attaches to anything and everything. The result is a constant questioning of integrity without conclusive answers. We have now reached the point, argues Albrow, where the West needs to relinquish its fond belief in its singularity and strive with the rest of the world to create an order where honesty, trust and reliability in our relationships with others, friends and strangers, personal or corporate, are paramount. This highly original account of an idea that lies at the heart of Western culture will be of interest to anyone concerned about the state and future of our public life.

Public life is dominated from time to time by media storms around integrity. The behaviour of elected political leaders has led many to decry the deterioration in standards and the lack of integrity in public life. But what is integrity, and where does our concern with integrity in public life come from?  In this book, Martin Albrow argues that integrity has been an essential component of the rise of the West and a key feature that distinguishes the West from other civilizations. He traces the idea of integrity back to its roots in ancient Greece and Rome, where integrity acquired its special meaning: the unique feature of any object with integrity was that it combined its wholeness or completeness with the embodiment of standards that came from outside it. Integrity was unity through values. He then follows the story of integrity through early Christianity and the Renaissance to the present day. Today, we find ourselves in the paradoxical situation where the lack of integrity in public life is widely condemned while, at the same time, politicians can remain popular without even pretending to act with integrity: this is the new politics of the integrity vacuum. The idea of integrity may be a distinctively western one but, like many other aspects of western culture, it has now become a property of worldwide society. Albrow concludes by arguing that integrity could add more value today by being combined with non-western wisdom as we strive to create an order where honesty, trust and reliability in our relationships with others are paramount. This highly original account of an idea that lies at the heart of western culture will be of interest to anyone concerned about the state and future of our public life.