This work is an examination of the French Doctrinaires, a largely neglected group of liberal thinkers in post-revolutionary France who were proponents of a nuanced sociological and historical approach to political theory. It explores the Doctrinaires' ideas on the French Revolution.
Liberalism under Siege: The Political Thought of the French Doctrinaries is a compelling examination of the French Doctrinaries, a largely neglected group of liberal thinkers in post-revolutionary France who were proponents of a nuanced sociological and historical approach to political theory. The first systematic interpretation of the French Doctrinaries' political writings to appear in English, Liberalism under Siege combines textual analysis and historical interpretation to explore the Doctrinaires' ideas on the French Revolution, democracy, political power, sovereignty of reason, publicity, capacity, and representative government. Aurelian Craiutu's detailed work is not only an argument for the reappraisal of the Bourbon Restoration as a golden age of political thought; it is also a passionate and persuasive addition to contemporary debates about the diversity of liberalism.
A compelling history of liberalism from the nineteenth century to today Liberalism dominates today's politics just as it decisively shaped the American and European past. This engrossing history of liberalism—the first in English for many decades—traces liberalism’s ideals, successes, and failures through the lives and ideas of a rich cast of European and American thinkers and politicians, from the early nineteenth century to today. An enlightening account of a vulnerable but critically important political creed, Liberalism provides the vital historical and intellectual background for hard thinking about liberal democracy’s future.
In 1988, director Martin Scorsese fulfilled his lifelong dream of making a film about Jesus Christ. Rather than celebrating the film as a statement of faith, churches and religious leaders immediately went on the attack, alleging blasphemy. At the height of the controversy, thousands of phone calls a day flooded the Universal switchboard, and before the year was out, more than three million mailings protesting the film fanned out across the country. For the first time in history, a studio took responsibility for protecting theaters and scrambled to recruit a "field crisis team" to guide The Last Temptation of Christ through its contentious American openings. Overseas, the film faced widespread censorship actions, with thirteen countries eventually banning the film. The response in Europe turned violent when opposition groups sacked theaters in France and Greece and caused injuries to dozens of moviegoers. Twenty years later, author Thomas R. Lindlof offers a comprehensive account of how this provocative film came to be made and how Universal Pictures and its parent company MCA became targets of the most intense, unremitting attacks ever mounted against a media company. The film faced early and determined opposition from elements of the religious Right when it was being developed at Paramount during the last year the studio was run by the celebrated troika of Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. By the mid-1980s, Scorsese's film was widely regarded as unmakeable—a political stick of dynamite that no one dared touch. Through the joint efforts of two of the era's most influential executives, CAA president Michael Ovitz and Universal Pictures chairman Thomas P. Pollock, this improbable project found its way into production. The making of The Last Temptation of Christ caught evangelical Christians at a moment when they were suffering a crisis of confidence in their leadership. The religious right seized on the film as a way to rehabilitate its image and to mobilize ordinary citizens to attack liberalism in art and culture. The ensuing controversy over the film's alleged blasphemy escalated into a full-scale war fought out very openly in the media. Universal/MCA faced unprecedented calls for boycotts of its business interests, anti-Semitic rhetoric and death threats were directed at MCA chairman Lew Wasserman and other MCA executives, and the industry faced the specter of violence at theaters. Hollywood Under Siege draws upon interviews with many of the key figures—Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Michael Ovitz, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jack Valenti, Thomas P. Pollock, and Willem Dafoe—to explore the trajectory of the film from its conception to the subsequent epic controversy and beyond. Lindlof offers a fascinating dissection of a critical episode in the embryonic culture wars, illuminating the explosive effects of the clash between the interests of the media industry and the forces of social conservatism.
A 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Japan's challenges and opportunities in a new era of uncertainty Henry Kissinger wrote a few years ago that Japan has been for seven decades “an important anchor of Asian stability and global peace and prosperity.” However, Japan has only played this anchoring role within an American-led liberal international order built from the ashes of World War II. Now that order itself is under siege, not just from illiberal forces such as China and Russia but from its very core, the United States under Donald Trump. The already evident damage to that order, and even its possible collapse, pose particular challenges for Japan, as explored in this book. Noted experts survey the difficult position that Japan finds itself in, both abroad and at home. The weakening of the rules-based order threatens the very basis of Japan's trade-based prosperity, with the unreliability of U.S. protection leaving Japan vulnerable to an economic and technological superpower in China and at heightened risk from a nuclear North Korea. Japan's response to such challenges are complicated by controversies over constitutional revision and the dark aspects of its history that remain a source of tension with its neighbors. The absence of virulent strains of populism have helped to provide Japan with a stable platform from which to pursue its international agenda. Yet with a rapidly aging population, widening intergenerational inequality, and high levels of public debt, the sources of Japan's stability—its welfare state and immigration policies—are becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Each of the book's chapters is written by a specialist in the field, and the book benefits from interviews with more than 40 Japanese policymakers and experts, as well as a public opinion survey. The book outlines today's challenges to the liberal international order, proposes a role for Japan to uphold, reform and shape the order, and examines Japan's assets as well as constraints as it seeks to play the role of a proactive stabilizer in the Asia-Pacific.
Drawing on his extensive knowledge of history, law, and economics, Richard Epstein examines how best to regulate the interface between market choice and government intervention--and find a middle way between socialism and libertarianism. He argues the merits of competition over protectionism and reveals the negative results that ensue when political forces displace economic competition with subsidies and barriers to entry. In the process, he provides an illuminating analysis of some of the ways that special interest groups, with the help of sympathetic politicians, have been able to manipulate free markets in their favor.
A compelling history of liberalism from the nineteenth century to today Despite playing a decisive role in shaping the past two hundred years of American and European politics, liberalism is no longer the dominant force it once was. In this expanded and updated edition of what has become a classic history of liberalism, Edmund Fawcett traces its ideals, successes, and failures through the lives and ideas of exemplary thinkers and politicians from the early nineteenth century to today. Significant revisions—including a new conclusion—reflect recent changes affecting the world political order that many see as presenting new and very potent threats to the survival of liberal democracy as we know it. A richly detailed account of a vulnerable but critically important political creed, this book reminds us that to defend liberalism it is vital to understand its character and history.
"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.
For nearly 40 years, Ronald Reagan's vision--small government, lower taxes, and self-reliant individualism--has remained America's dominant political ideology. The Democratic Party has offered no truly convincing competing vision. Instead, American liberalism has fallen under the spell of identity politics.Mark Lilla argues with acerbic wit that liberals, originally driven by a sincere desire to protect the most vulnerable Americans, have now unwittingly invested their energies in social movements rather than winning elections. This abandonment of political priorities has had dire consequences. But, with the Republican Party led by an unpredictable demagogue and in ideological disarray, Lilla believes liberals now have an opportunity to turn from the divisive politics of identity, and offer positive ideas for a shared future. A fiercely-argued, no-nonsense book, The Once and Future Liberal is essential reading for our momentous times.