Publisher's Comments (cont.)
A compelling, trenchant, and necessary defense of the liberal tradition that draws upon the ideas of its greatest thinkers to explain not only what the tradition actually is but also why it is still as relevant as ever, and how it can help us chart the course for a politics capable of moving modern society forward.
The Future of Liberalism represents the culmination of four decades of thinking and writing about American politics by one of our leading scholars (“one of liberalism’s last and most loyal sons [whose] criticism . . . is one of the glories of American democracy”—Leon Wieseltier). Alan Wolfe explains how the writings of Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and John Dewey, among others, helped shape the philosophy of liberalism: a capacious conception of human nature, a bedrock belief that people are more important than ideology, a respect for both individualism and its limits, a passion for social justice, and faith in reason and intellectual openness. And we see how liberalism might influence and illuminate contemporary debates on immigration, abortion, executive power, and free speech.
But, at the same time, Wolfe makes clear that before liberalism can be applied to today’s problems, it needs to be recovered, understood, and embraced—not just by Americans but by all modern people—as the most broadly beneficial way to live in our complex world. The Future of Liberalism is a powerfully persuasive step in that direction.
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