Lars Bo Kaspersen is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where he teaches sociology, history, and politics. He is co-editor, with Heine Andersen, of Classical and Modern Social Theory (Blackwell, 2000). He is currently working on the origin, development, and transformation of the Danish welfare state, and on the state formation and the emergence of citizenship in France, British, Germany, and Scandinavia in a historical comparative perspective.