Download or read book What Is Classical Liberal History written by Michael J. Douma and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-12-21 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians working in the classical liberal tradition believe that individual decision-making and individual rights matter in the making of history. History written in the classical liberal tradition emerged largely in the nineteenth century, when the field of history was first professionalized in Europe and the Americas. Professional historical research was then imbued with liberal values, which included rigorous attention to the sources, historicist suspicion of an ultimate mover, an honest and dispassionate rational outlook, and humility towards what could be known. Above all, liberals wanted to chart the history of liberty, warn against threats to liberty, and defend it in an evolving political world. They believed history was real, and that it had lessons to teach, but that these lessons could not provide sufficient knowledge to predict the future or reorganize society around a central plan. This book demonstrates how the classical liberal tradition in historical writing persists to this day, but how it is often neglected and due for renewal. The book contrasts the classical liberal view on history with conservative, progressive, Marxist, and post-modern views. Each of the eleven chapters address a different historical topic, from the development of classical liberalism in nineteenth century America to the the history of civil liberties and civil rights that stemmed from this tradition. Authors give particular attention to the importance of social and economic analysis. Each contributor was chosen as an expert in their field to provide a historiographical overview of their subject, and to explain what the classical liberal contribution to this historiography has been and should be. Authors then provide guidance towards possible tools of analysis and related research topics that future historians working in the classical liberal tradition could take up. The authors wish to call upon other historians to recognize the important contributions to historical understanding that have come and can be provided by the insights of classical liberalism.

Download or read book The Anglo American Tradition of Liberty written by João Carlos Espada and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-03 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joao Carlos Espada's provocative survey of a group of key Anglo-American and European political thinkers argues that there is a distinctive, Anglo-American tradition of liberty that is one of the core pillars of the Free World. Giving a broad overview of the tradition through summaries of the careers and ideas of fourteen of its key thinkers, neglected despite having been tremendously influential in the tradition of liberty, the author engages with current set ideas about the meaning of 'liberal' and 'conservative' to offer an engaging, intellectual case for liberal democracy.

Download or read book The Liberal International Theory Tradition in Europe written by Knud Erik Jørgensen and published by Palgrave Pivot. This book was released on 2022-01-19 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how the liberal international theory tradition evolved in Europe. It includes nine chapters focusing on both historical and contemporary branches of liberal IR theorizing. The combined portrait of the prominent IR theory orientation shows a long and rich theoretical tradition but also a tradition that the scholarly community rarely fully recognize. It is currently somewhat challenged and therefore in need of further advances. Concerning the historical branches, the authors present a truly European tradition that thus was not only present in a few countries. The contributors introduce examples of liberal theorizing that IR scholars tend to dismiss and they trace the boundaries between the liberal and other theoretical traditions. Given the prominence of the tradition, the book is surprisingly among the first to present a transnational perspective on the development of the liberal international theory tradition in Europe.

Download or read book Liberal Fascism written by Jonah Goldberg and published by Crown Forum. This book was released on 2008-01-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst? Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism. Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist. Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal. Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore. These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.

Download or read book The Lost History of Liberalism written by Helena Rosenblatt and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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."--

Download or read book Liberalism written by Michael Freeden and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Freeden explores the concept of liberalism, one of the longest-standing and central political theories and ideologies. Combining a variety of approaches, he distinguishes between liberalism as a political movement, as a system of ideas, and as a series of ethical and philosophical principles.

Download or read book Liberalism and Its Discontents written by Alan Brinkley and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did liberalism, the great political tradition that from the New Deal to the 1960s seemed to dominate American politics, fall from favor so far and so fast? In this history of liberalism since the 1930s, a distinguished historian offers an eloquent account of postwar liberalism, where it came from, where it has gone, and why. The book supplies a crucial chapter in the history of twentieth-century American politics as well as a valuable and clear perspective on the state of our nation's politics today. Liberalism and Its Discontents moves from a penetrating interpretation of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal to an analysis of the profound and frequently corrosive economic, social, and cultural changes that have undermined the liberal tradition. The book moves beyond an examination of the internal weaknesses of liberalism and the broad social and economic forces it faced to consider the role of alternative political traditions in liberalism's downfall. What emerges is a picture of a dominant political tradition far less uniform and stable--and far more complex and contested--than has been argued. The author offers as well a masterly assessment of how some of the leading historians of the postwar era explained (or failed to explain) liberalism and other political ideologies in the last half-century. He also makes clear how historical interpretation was itself a reflection of liberal assumptions that began to collapse more quickly and completely than almost any scholar could have imagined a generation ago. As both political history and a critique of that history, Liberalism and Its Discontents, based on extraordinary essays written over the last decade, leads to a new understanding of the shaping of modern America.

Download or read book The Rise of Liberal Religion written by Matthew Hedstrom and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Best First Book Prize of the American Society of Church History Society for U. S. Intellectual History Notable Title in American Intellectual History The story of liberal religion in the twentieth century, Matthew S. Hedstrom contends, is a story of cultural ascendency. This may come as a surprise-most scholarship in American religious history, after all, equates the numerical decline of the Protestant mainline with the failure of religious liberalism. Yet a look beyond the pews, into the wider culture, reveals a more complex and fascinating story, one Hedstrom tells in The Rise of Liberal Religion. Hedstrom attends especially to the critically important yet little-studied arena of religious book culture-particularly the religious middlebrow of mid-century-as the site where religious liberalism was most effectively popularized. By looking at book weeks, book clubs, public libraries, new publishing enterprises, key authors and bestsellers, wartime reading programs, and fan mail, among other sources, Hedstrom is able to provide a rich, on-the-ground account of the men, women, and organizations that drove religious liberalism's cultural rise in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Critically, by the post-WWII period the religious middlebrow had expanded beyond its Protestant roots, using mystical and psychological spirituality as a platform for interreligious exchange. This compelling history of religion and book culture not only shows how reading and book buying were critical twentieth-century religious practices, but also provides a model for thinking about the relationship of religion to consumer culture more broadly. In this way, The Rise of Liberal Religion offers both innovative cultural history and new ways of seeing the imprint of liberal religion in our own times.

Download or read book Liberalism written by and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is Mises's classic statement in defense of a free society, one of the last statements of the old liberal school and a text from which we can continue to learn. It has been the conscience of a global movement for liberty for 80 years. This edition, from the Mises Institute, features a new foreword by Thomas Woods. It first appeared in 1927, as a followup to both his devastating 1922 book showing that socialism would fail, and his 1926 book on interventionism. It was written to address the burning question: if not socialism, and if not fascism or interventionism, what form of social arrangements are most conducive to human flourishing? Mises's answer is summed up in the title, by which he meant classical liberalism. Mises did more than restate classical doctrine. He gave a thoroughly modern defense of freedom, one that corrected the errors of the old liberal school by rooting the idea of liberty in the institution of private property (a subject on which the classical school was sometimes unclear). Here is the grand contribution of this volume. "The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production... All the other demands of liberalism result from this fundamental demand." But there are other insights too. He shows that political decentralization and secession are the best means to peace and political liberty. As for religion, he recommends the complete separation of church and state. On immigration, he favors the freedom of movement. On culture, he praised the political virtue of tolerance. On education: state involvement must end, and completely. He deals frankly with the nationalities problem, and provides a stirring defense of rationalism as the essential foundation of liberal political order. He discusses political strategy, and the relationship of liberalism to special-interest politics. In some ways, this is the most political of Mises's treatises, and also one of the most inspiring books ever written on the idea of liberty. It remains the book that can set the world on fire for freedom, which is probably why it has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Download or read book The Liberal Arts Tradition written by Kevin Wayne Clark and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book introduces readers to a paradigm for understanding classical education that transcends the familiar three-stage pattern of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Instead, this book describes the liberal arts as a central part of a larger and more robust paradigm of classical education that should consist of piety, gymnastic, music, liberal arts, philosophy, and theology. The book also recovers the means by which classical educators developed more than just intellectual virtue (by means of the seven liberal arts) by holistically cultivating the mind, body, will, and affections."--Back cover.

Download or read book End of History and the Last Man written by Francis Fukuyama and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-03-01 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since its first publication in 1992, the New York Times bestselling The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. "Profoundly realistic and important...supremely timely and cogent...the first book to fully fathom the depth and range of the changes now sweeping through the world." —The Washington Post Book World Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.

Download or read book French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day written by Raf Geenens and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is an enduring assumption that the French have never been and will never be liberal. As with all clichés, this contains a grain of truth, but it also overlooks an important school of thought that has been a constant presence in French intellectual and political culture for nearly three centuries: French political liberalism. In this collaborative volume, a distinguished group of philosophers, political theorists and intellectual historians uncover this unjustly neglected tradition. The chapters examine the nature and distinctiveness of French liberalism, providing a comprehensive treatment of major themes including French liberalism's relationship with republicanism, Protestantism, utilitarianism and the human rights tradition. Individual chapters are devoted to Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Aron, Lefort and Gauchet, as well as to some lesser known, yet important thinkers, including several political economists and French-style 'neoliberals'. French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day is essential reading for all those interested in the history of political thought.

Download or read book Why Liberalism Failed written by Patrick J. Deneen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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.

Download or read book Not Trivial written by Laurie Endicott Thomas and published by . This book was released on 2013-08 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why phonics and grammar are not trivial. Why have our political discussions in the United States become so ugly and pointless? Why are we suffering from such a breakdown in civility? In Not Trivial: How Studying the Traditional Liberal Arts Can Set You Free, Laurie Endicott Thomas explains that the problem boils down to education. The word civility originally meant training in the liberal arts. The classical liberal arts were a set of seven disciplines that were developed largely in ancient Athens to promote productive political discussions within Athenian democracy. They included three verbal arts (the trivium): grammar, logic, and rhetoric. They also included four arts of number, space, and time (the quadrivium): mathematics, geometry, music, and astronomy. These arts helped students learn to think rationally and to express themselves persuasively. The ancient Romans called these studies the liberal arts because they were considered appropriate for freeborn men, as opposed to slaves. Slaves were taught only the servile and mechanical arts, to make them more productive as workers. During the Renaissance, the classical liberal arts curriculum was supplemented by the humanities, including history, philosophy, literature, and art. Like the liberal arts, the humanities were intended to promote productive and even pleasant discussions among political decision-makers. Today, the sciences would have to be added to that curriculum. Thomas explains that the problems in our political system start in first grade. Our teachers are being trained and often forced to use a method of reading instruction that does not work. As a result, many children suffer from lifelong problems with reading. Our teachers are also being pressured to neglect the teaching of grammar. As a result, many children end up with poor reading comprehension and lifelong problems with logical thinking. Thus, they will have difficulty in making or appreciating reasonable arguments. Thomas argues that we cannot hope to enjoy freedom and equality until all children get the kind of education that is appropriate for free people. She concludes with a clear explanation of what that curriculum would be like.

Download or read book Liberalism written by Domenico Losurdo and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Europe’s leading intellectual historians deconstructs the dark side of liberalism, sifting through 3 centuries of liberal writings by John Locke, Alexis de Tocqueville, and others. In this definitive historical investigation, Italian author and philosopher Domenico Losurdo argues that from the outset liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery. Narrating an intellectual history running from the 18th through to the 20th centuries, Losurdo examines the thought of preeminent liberal writers such as Locke, Burke, Tocqueville, Constant, Bentham, and Sieyès, revealing the inner contradictions of an intellectual position that has exercised a formative influence on today’s politics. Among the dominant strains of liberalism, he discerns the counter-currents of more radical positions, lost in the constitution of the modern world order.

Download or read book Democracy and Tradition written by Jeffrey Stout and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asking how the citizens of modern democracy can reason with one another, this book carves out a controversial position between those who view religious voices as an anathema to democracy and those who believe democratic society is a moral wasteland because such voices are not heard.

Download or read book The Liberal Arts Tradition written by Bruce A. Kimball and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 2010-05-13 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ranging from Plato in antiquity to Martha Nussbaum in the present era, the authors of the seventy readings included in The Liberal Arts Tradition present significant and exemplary views addressing liberal arts education over the course of its history, particularly in the United States. Most of the documents are newly translated or no longer available in print. Arranged chronologically, each selection is accompanied by an informative introduction and extensive explanatory notes discussing its place within the liberal arts tradition. Based upon the author's twenty-five years of experience leading seminars concerning the history of liberal education, this collection presents a uniquely comprehensive and salient set of documents, while incorporating the neglected portrayal and discussion of women within the history of the liberal arts.