Download or read book The Reconstruction of American Liberalism 1865 1914 written by Nancy Cohen and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cohen argues that the values and programs characteristic of modern American liberalism were invented not during the Progressive Era, as is generally assumed, but in the conflict-ridden years after the Civil War.
Download or read book Moral Politics written by George Lakoff and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this classic text, the first full-scale application of cognitive science to politics, George Lakoff analyzes the unconscious and rhetorical worldviews of liberals and conservatives, discovering radically different but remarkably consistent conceptions of morality on both the left and right. For this new edition, Lakoff adds a preface and an afterword extending his observations to major ideological conflicts since the book's original publication, from the impeachment of Bill Clinton to the 2000 presidential election and its aftermath.
Download or read book The Lost History of Liberalism written by Helena Rosenblatt and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-11 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The changing face of the liberal creed from the ancient world to today 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. She shows that it was the French Revolution that gave birth to liberalism and Germans who transformed it. Only in the mid-twentieth century did the concept become widely known in the United States—and then, as now, its meaning was hotly debated. Liberals were originally moralists at heart. They believed in the power of religion to reform society, emphasized the sanctity of the family, and never spoke of rights without speaking of duties. 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. Today, we still can’t seem to agree on liberalism’s meaning. In the United States, a “liberal” is someone who advocates big government, while in France, big government is contrary to “liberalism.” Political debates become befuddled because of semantic and conceptual confusion. The Lost History of Liberalism sets the record straight on a core tenet of today’s political conversation and lays the foundations for a more constructive discussion about the future of liberal democracy.
Download or read book The Liberal s Guide to Conservatives written by J. Scott Wagner and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Liberalism and Community written by Steven Kautz and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary political theory has experienced a recent revival of an old idea: that of community. In Liberalism and Community, Steven Kautz explores the consequences of this renewed interest for liberal politics. Whereas communitarian critics argue that liberalism is both morally and politically deficient because it does not adequately account for equality and virtue, Kautz defends liberalism by presenting reports of various partisan quarrels among liberals (who love liberty), democrats (who love equality), and republicans (who love virtue). Founded on the classic texts of Locke and Montesquieu, the liberalism that Kautz advocates is cautious and conservative. He defends it against the arguments of important new communitarians--Richard Rorty, Michael Walzer, Benjamin Barber, and Michael Sandel--and contrasts communitarian and liberal views on key questions. He discusses Walzer' s account of moral reasoning in a democratic community, engages Barber on the nature and limits of republican community, and takes on Rorty's communitarian account of moral psychology and the nature of the self. Kautz also explores the concepts of virtue, tolerance, and patriotism--issues of particular interest to communitarians which pose special problems for liberal political theory--in an effort to rebuild a new and more tenable interpretation of liberal rationality.
Download or read book Liberals and Communism written by Frank A. Warren and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although deconstruction has become a popular catchword, as an intellectual movement it has never entirely caught on within the university. For some in the academy, deconstruction, and Jacques Derrida in particular, are responsible for the demise of accountability in the study of literature. Countering these facile dismissals of Derrida and deconstruction, Herman Rapaport explores the incoherence that has plagued critical theory since the 1960s and the resulting legitimacy crisis in the humanities. Against the backdrop of a rich, informed discussion of Derrida's writings -- and how they have been misconstrued by critics and admirers alike -- The Theory Mess investigates the vicissitudes of Anglo-American criticism over the past thirty years and proposes some possibilities for reform.
Download or read book Predisposed written by John R. Hibbing and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-23 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buried in many people and operating largely outside the realm of conscious thought are forces inclining us toward liberal or conservative political convictions. Our biology predisposes us to see and understand the world in different ways, not always reason and the careful consideration of facts. These predispositions are in turn responsible for a significant portion of the political and ideological conflict that marks human history. With verve and wit, renowned social scientists John Hibbing, Kevin Smith, and John Alford—pioneers in the field of biopolitics—present overwhelming evidence that people differ politically not just because they grew up in different cultures or were presented with different information. Despite the oft-heard longing for consensus, unity, and peace, the universal rift between conservatives and liberals endures because people have diverse psychological, physiological, and genetic traits. These biological differences influence much of what makes people who they are, including their orientations to politics. Political disputes typically spring from the assumption that those who do not agree with us are shallow, misguided, uninformed, and ignorant. Predisposed suggests instead that political opponents simply experience, process, and respond to the world differently. It follows, then, that the key to getting along politically is not the ability of one side to persuade the other side to see the error of its ways but rather the ability of each side to see that the other is different, not just politically, but physically. Predisposed will change the way you think about politics and partisan conflict. As a bonus, the book includes a "Left/Right 20 Questions" game to test whether your predispositions lean liberal or conservative.
Download or read book God and Other Famous Liberals written by F. Forrester Church and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The highly respected Unitarian minister and voice of the liberal spirit demonstrates how the roots of liberalism and the roots of America are the same. The son of U.S. senator Frank Church defends liberalism by revealing the liberal and spiritual principles of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and others.
Download or read book Liberalism written by Edmund Fawcett and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-04 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling history of liberalism from the nineteenth century to today Liberalism dominates today's politics just as it decisively shaped the past two hundred years of American and European history. Yet there is striking disagreement about what liberalism really means and how it arose. In this engrossing history of liberalism—the first in English for many decades—veteran political observer Edmund Fawcett traces the ideals, successes, and failures of this central political tradition through the lives and ideas of a rich cast of European and American thinkers and politicians, from the early nineteenth century to today. Using a broad idea of liberalism, the book discusses celebrated thinkers from Constant and Mill to Berlin, Hayek, and Rawls, as well as more neglected figures. Its twentieth-century politicians include Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Willy Brandt, but also Hoover, Reagan, and Kohl. The story tracks political liberalism from its beginnings in the 1830s to its long, grudging compromise with democracy, through a golden age after 1945 to the present mood of challenge and doubt. Focusing on the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, the book traces how the distinct traditions of these countries converged on the practice of liberal democracy. Although liberalism has many currents, Fawcett suggests that they are held together by shared commitments: resistance to power, faith in social progress, respect for people’s chosen enterprises and beliefs, and acceptance that interests and faiths will always conflict. An enlightening account of a vulnerable but critically important political creed, Liberalism will be a revelation for readers who think they already know—for good or ill—what liberalism is.
Download or read book The Liberal Hour written by G. Calvin Mackenzie and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the liberal movement in the 1960s argues that the government was largely responsible for many of the positive changes associated with the period, in an account that evaluates the cultural and political factors that enabled key reforms.
Download or read book The Once and Future Liberal written by Mark Lilla and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the most internationally admired political thinkers, a controversial polemic on the failures of identity politics and what comes next for the left — in America and beyond. Following the shocking results of the US election of 2016, public intellectuals across the globe offered theories and explanations, but few were met with such vitriol, panic, and debate as Mark Lilla’s. The Once and Future Liberal is a passionate plea to liberals to turn from the divisive politics of identity and develop a vision of the future that can persuade all citizens that they share a common destiny. Driven by a sincere desire to protect society’s most vulnerable, the left has unwittingly balkanized the electorate, encouraged self-absorption rather than solidarity, and invested its energies in social movements rather than party politics. Identity-focused individualism has insidiously conspired with amoral economic individualism to shape an electorate with little sense of a shared future and near-contempt for the idea of the common good. Now is the time to re-build a sense of common feeling and purpose, and a sense of duty to one another. A fiercely argued, important book, enlivened by acerbic wit and erudition, The Once and Future Liberal is essential reading for our times.
Download or read book Social Progress written by William Floyd and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Explanation" signed: William Floyd, editor. "A library for liberals": pages 325-335.
Download or read book The Lost History of Liberalism written by Helena Rosenblatt and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The changing face of the liberal creed from the ancient world to today 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. She shows that it was the French Revolution that gave birth to liberalism and Germans who transformed it. Only in the mid-twentieth century did the concept become widely known in the United States—and then, as now, its meaning was hotly debated. Liberals were originally moralists at heart. They believed in the power of religion to reform society, emphasized the sanctity of the family, and never spoke of rights without speaking of duties. 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. Today, we still can’t seem to agree on liberalism’s meaning. In the United States, a “liberal” is someone who advocates big government, while in France, big government is contrary to “liberalism.” Political debates become befuddled because of semantic and conceptual confusion. The Lost History of Liberalism sets the record straight on a core tenet of today’s political conversation and lays the foundations for a more constructive discussion about the future of liberal democracy.
Download or read book Liberals on Liberalism written by Alfonso J. Damico and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 1986 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 11 essays in this volume represent an attempt to review the meaning, foundations, and goals of modern liberalism. Part I provides an assessment of liberalism's current standing and statements on how its reconstruction might be undertaken. These include Thomas Spragens' analysis of reason within the liberal culture and James Fiskin on alternative strategies for justifying liberalism's core values. Part II covers specific characteristics of the philosophy of liberalism--the liberal idea of freedom and of justice, the liberal theory of community and self-identification, and the possibility of a liberal public morality. Part III, on the politics of liberalism, covers the relationship between liberalism and democracy, offers a defense of such liberal institutions as representative government, and concludes by positioning liberalism closer to the activity of everyday political participants. ISBN 0-8476-7485-1 (pbk.): $14.95.
Download or read book Answering Back written by David Coates and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-12-31 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential toolkit for all progressives- helping them to respond to the current sustained right-wing criticism of US domestic and foreign policy "The game is begun," Rush Limbaugh said, the day after Barack Obama won the presidency; and he was right. The clash of views on US domestic and foreign policy is, if anything, even more intense now than it was before the change of leadership in Washington. Right-wing media figures and Republican politicians regularly regale us with conservative criticisms of the realignment of policy and politics now underway. Even more than in 2008, now is the time for liberals to answer back, to counter those criticisms by both recognizing their content and locating their weaknesses. In the great clash of parties and philosophies that will shape the next American century, an informed citizenry will require more accurate information, ideas, and arguments than right-wing radio characteristically provides, and the market is wide open for a book that engages with both the worst and the best of the Republican case. Answering Back is that book. Answering Back intends to lift the quality of political discourse in the United States by bringing together the best conservative and the best liberal arguments on the eight key policy issues now in contention between the parties: trickledown economics and the role of public spending, the desirability of welfare reform, the future of social security, the establishment of health care for all, the possibility of comprehensive immigration control, religious issues and the social agenda, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the causes of the financial meltdown. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction, followed by conservative views and a point-by-point progressive response. Each stage of each argument is labeled for easy memorization, and the language used is deliberately jargon free, to make the material as accessible as possible. The sources of both conservative and progressive arguments (and their supporting evidence) are cited to open the door to further research. Answering Back is a completely revised and expanded version of A Liberal Tookit, intially published by Praeger in 2007. This new version is a handbook of arguments, data, and sources that present today's key policy debates in an even-handed and accessible manner. This will be an essential tool for anyone interested in policy reform, party politics, and American politics. It is written in a manner that is, at one and the same time, scholarly, useful, accessible, and fun!
Download or read book Liberals and Cannibals written by Steven Lukes and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can the tension between relativism and the moral universalism current in contemporary politics be resolved within the framework of liberalism? How is liberal society to interpret the diversity of morals? Is pluralism the appropriate response? How does pluralism differ from the widely condemned ethnocentric relativism-"liberalism for the Liberals, cannibalism for the cannibals"? Confronting liberal thought with its own limitations, Steven Lukes' work is more relevant than ever. While recognizing the dangers of moral imperialism, Lukes argues that a relativist position based on identifying clearly distinct cultural and moral communities is incoherent. Drawing on work in anthropology and philosophy, he examines the nature of social justice, the politics of identity and human rights theory.
Download or read book Against Liberalism written by John Kekes and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liberalism is doomed to failure, John Kekes argues in this penetrating criticism of its basic assumptions. Liberals favor individual autonomy, a wide plurality of choices, and equal rights and resources, seeing them as essential for good lives. They oppose such evils as selfishness, intolerance, cruelty, and greed. Yet the more autonomy, equality, and pluralism there is, Kekes contends, the greater is the scope for evil. According to Kekes, liberalism is inconsistent because the conditions liberals regard as essential for good lives actually foster the very evils liberals want to avoid, and avoiding those evils depends on conditions contrary to the ones liberals favor. Kekes argues further that the liberal conceptions of equality, justice, and pluralism require treating good and evil people with equal respect, distributing resources without regard to what recipients deserve, and restricting choices to those that conform to liberal preconceptions. All these policies are detrimental to good lives. Kekes concludes that liberalism cannot cope with the prevalence of evil, that it is vitiated by inconsistent commitments, and that—contrary to its aim—liberalism is an obstacle to good lives.
