Liberalism for a New Century

Liberalism for a New Century
Author: Neil Jumonville
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2007-06-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520250710

"Here, finally, the collection we've been waiting for—thoughtful and lively essays on the relevance of liberalism for this new century, by some of its keenest observers."—Robert B. Reich, Professor of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley

The Lost History of Liberalism

The Lost History of Liberalism
Author: Helena Rosenblatt
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2020-02-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691203962

"The Lost History of Liberalism challenges our most basic assumptions about a political creed that has become a rallying cry - and a term of derision - in today's increasingly divided public square. Taking readers from ancient Rome to today, Helena Rosenblatt traces the evolution of the words "liberal" and "liberalism," revealing the heated debates that have taken place over their meaning. In this timely and provocative book, Rosenblatt debunks the popular myth of liberalism as a uniquely Anglo-American tradition centered on individual rights. It was only during the Cold War and America's growing world hegemony that liberalism was refashioned into an American ideology focused so strongly on individual freedoms."--

Liberalism and the Postcolony

Liberalism and the Postcolony
Author: Lisandro E. Claudio
Publisher: NUS Press
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2017-03-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 9814722529

Extricating liberalism from the haze of anti-modernist and anti-European caricature, this book traces the role of liberal philosophy in the building of a new nation. It examines the role of toleration, rights, and mediation in the postcolony. Through the biographies of four Filipino scholar-bureaucrats—Camilo Osias, Salvador Araneta, Carlos P. Romulo, and Salvador P. Lopez—Lisandro E. Claudio argues that liberal thought served as the grammar of Filipino democracy in the 20th century. By looking at various articulations of liberalism in pedagogy, international affairs, economics, and literature, Claudio not only narrates an obscured history of the Philippine state, he also argues for a new liberalism rooted in the postcolonial experience, a timely intervention considering current developments in politics in Southeast Asia.

Making Sense of American Liberalism

Making Sense of American Liberalism
Author: Jonathan Bell
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2012-04-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0252093984

This collection of thoughtful and timely essays offers refreshing and intelligent new perspectives on postwar American liberalism. Sophisticated yet accessible, Making Sense of American Liberalism challenges popular myths about liberalism in the United States. The volume presents the Democratic Party and liberal reform efforts such as civil rights, feminism, labor, and environmentalism as a more united, more radical force than has been depicted in scholarship and the media emphasizing the decline and disunity of the left. Distinguished contributors assess the problems liberals have confronted in the twentieth century, examine their strategies for reform, and chart the successes and potential for future liberal reform. Contributors are Anthony J. Badger, Jonathan Bell, Lizabeth Cohen, Susan Hartmann, Ella Howard, Bruce Miroff, Nelson Lichtenstein, Doug Rossinow, Timothy Stanley, and Timothy Thurber.

Liberalism and Empire

Liberalism and Empire
Author: Uday Singh Mehta
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2018-06-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 022651918X

We take liberalism to be a set of ideas committed to political rights and self-determination, yet it also served to justify an empire built on political domination. Uday Mehta argues that imperialism, far from contradicting liberal tenets, in fact stemmed from liberal assumptions about reason and historical progress. Confronted with unfamiliar cultures such as India, British liberals could only see them as backward or infantile. In this, liberals manifested a narrow conception of human experience and ways of being in the world. Ironically, it is in the conservative Edmund Burke—a severe critic of Britain's arrogant, paternalistic colonial expansion—that Mehta finds an alternative and more capacious liberal vision. Shedding light on a fundamental tension in liberal theory, Liberalism and Empire reaches beyond post-colonial studies to revise our conception of the grand liberal tradition and the conception of experience with which it is associated.

Rethinking Liberalism for the 21st Century

Rethinking Liberalism for the 21st Century
Author: Giunia Gatta
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351205374

Rethinking Liberalism for the 21st Century offers an indispensable reexamination of the life, work, and interventions of a prominent liberal political theorist of the 20th century: Judith Shklar. Drawing on published and unpublished sources including Shklar’s correspondence, lecture notes, and other manuscripts, Giunia Gatta presents a fresh theoretical interpretation of Shklar’s liberalism as philosophically and politically radical. Beginning with a thorough reconstruction of Shklar’s life and her interest in political theory, Gatta turns her attention to examining the tension between Shklar’s critique of the term "modernity" and her passion for Enlightenment thinkers, including Rousseau and Hegel. In the second part of the book, Gatta roots Shklar’s liberalism of permanent minorities in her work in the history of political thought, and highlights this contribution as a fundamental recasting of liberalism as the political philosophy of outsiders. She makes a compelling argument for a liberalism of permanent minorities that refuses to stand on the ground of firm foundations and, instead, is oriented by complex understandings of cruelty and fear. Rethinking Liberalism for the 21st Century is a much-needed reorientation of traditional liberal policies, allowing for a more meaningful intervention in many contemporary debates. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of political theory, the history of political thought and ideas, philosophy, international relations, and political science in general.

Liberalism in Dark Times

Liberalism in Dark Times
Author: Joshua L. Cherniss
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2023-02-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 069122093X

A timely defense of liberalism that draws vital lessons from its greatest midcentury proponents Today, liberalism faces threats from across the political spectrum. While right-wing populists and leftist purists righteously violate liberal norms, theorists of liberalism seem to have little to say. In Liberalism in Dark Times, Joshua Cherniss issues a rousing defense of the liberal tradition, drawing on a neglected strand of liberal thought. Assaults on liberalism—a political order characterized by limits on political power and respect for individual rights—are nothing new. Early in the twentieth century, democracy was under attack around the world, with one country after another succumbing to dictatorship. While many intellectuals dismissed liberalism as outdated, unrealistic, or unworthy, a handful of writers defended and reinvigorated the liberal ideal, including Max Weber, Raymond Aron, Albert Camus, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Isaiah Berlin—each of whom is given a compelling new assessment here. Building on the work of these thinkers, Cherniss urges us to imagine liberalism not as a set of policies but as a temperament or disposition—one marked by openness to complexity, willingness to acknowledge uncertainty, tolerance for difference, and resistance to ruthlessness. In the face of rising political fanaticism, he persuasively argues for the continuing importance of this liberal ethos.

Faith Without Certainty

Faith Without Certainty
Author:
Publisher: Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
Total Pages: 260
Release:
Genre: Liberalism (Religion)
ISBN: 9781558965997

This book lays out the basic characteristics of liberal theology, delving into historical and philosophical sources as well as social and intellectual roots. Ideal for readers who want a better understanding of liberal theology, a religious tradition that is rooted not in authority but in one's own experience and conscience.

What Was Liberalism?

What Was Liberalism?
Author: James Traub
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2019-09-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1541616847

A sweeping history of liberalism, from its earliest origins to its imperiled present and uncertain future Donald Trump is the first American president to regard liberal values with open contempt. He has company: the leaders of Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey, among others, are also avowed illiberals. What happened? Why did liberalism lose the support it once enjoyed? In What Was Liberalism?, James Traub returns to the origins of liberalism, in the aftermath of the American and French revolutions and in the works of such great thinkers as John Stuart Mill and Isaiah Berlin. Although the first liberals were deeply skeptical of majority rule, the liberal faith adapted, coming to encompass belief in not only individual rights and free markets, but also state action to provide basic goods. By the second half of the twentieth century, liberalism had become the national creed of the most powerful country in the world. But this consensus did not last. Liberalism is now widely regarded as an antiquated doctrine. What Was LIberalism? reviews the evolution of the liberal idea over more than two centuries for lessons on how it can rebuild its majoritarian foundations.

Why Liberalism Failed

Why Liberalism Failed
Author: Patrick J. Deneen
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2019-02-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0300240023

"One of the most important political books of 2018."—Rod Dreher, American Conservative Of the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century—fascism, communism, and liberalism—only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Here, Deneen offers an astringent warning that the centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure.