Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

The Lost History of Liberalism : From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century / Helena Rosenblatt.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]Copyright date: ©2018Description: 1 online resource (368 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691170701
  • 9780691184135
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 320.51 23
LOC classification:
  • JC574 .R67 2018
  • JC574 .R674 2018
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1. What It Meant to Be Liberal from Cicero to Lafayette -- CHAPTER 2. The French Revolution and the Origins of Liberalism, 1789-1830 -- CHAPTER 3. Liberalism, Democracy, and the Emergence of the Social Question, 1830-48 -- CHAPTER 4. The Question of Character -- CHAPTER 5. Caesarism and Liberal Democracy: Napoleon III, Lincoln, Gladstone, and Bismarck -- CHAPTER 6. The Battle to Secularize Education -- CHAPTER 7. Two Liberalisms: Old and New -- CHAPTER 8. Liberalism Becomes the American Creed -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index
Summary: The changing face of the liberal creed from the ancient world to todayThe 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.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780691184135

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1. What It Meant to Be Liberal from Cicero to Lafayette -- CHAPTER 2. The French Revolution and the Origins of Liberalism, 1789-1830 -- CHAPTER 3. Liberalism, Democracy, and the Emergence of the Social Question, 1830-48 -- CHAPTER 4. The Question of Character -- CHAPTER 5. Caesarism and Liberal Democracy: Napoleon III, Lincoln, Gladstone, and Bismarck -- CHAPTER 6. The Battle to Secularize Education -- CHAPTER 7. Two Liberalisms: Old and New -- CHAPTER 8. Liberalism Becomes the American Creed -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

The changing face of the liberal creed from the ancient world to todayThe 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.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 27. Sep 2021)