What Was Liberalism?
The Past, Present, and Promise of a Noble Idea
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Narrated by:
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L. J. Ganser
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By:
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James Traub
About this listen
A sweeping history of liberalism, from its earliest origins to its imperiled present and uncertain future
Donald Trump is the first American president to regard liberal values with open contempt. He has company: the leaders of Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey, among others, are also avowed illiberals. What happened? Why did liberalism lose the support it once enjoyed?
In What Was Liberalism?, James Traub returns to the origins of liberalism, in the aftermath of the American and French revolutions and in the works of such great thinkers as John Stuart Mill and Isaiah Berlin.
Although the first liberals were deeply skeptical of majority rule, the liberal faith adapted, coming to encompass belief in not only individual rights and free markets, but also state action to provide basic goods. By the second half of the twentieth century, liberalism had become the national creed of the most powerful country in the world. But this consensus did not last. Liberalism is now widely regarded as an antiquated doctrine. What Was LIberalism? reviews the evolution of the liberal idea over more than two centuries for lessons on how it can rebuild its majoritarian foundations.
©2019 James Traub (P)2019 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"No post-mortem, James Traub's urgent book accounts for what liberalism has been, why it stumbled, and why it must revive. Much as in the 1930s, assaults on liberal politics from the right and the left practically define our low, dishonest time. Traub joins a rising tide of writers, citizens, and political leaders who are reclaiming the rich, soulful, and indispensable liberal tradition." (Sean Wilentz)
"What Was Liberalism? provides a concise guide to both the origins and current travails of the most important idea of our time, one that is being threatened by populists and authoritarians today around the world. It is both sympathetic about liberalism's virtues and clear-eyed as to its limitations, showing us a way forward out of the present crisis." (Francis Fukuyama)
"In this remarkable tour de force, James Traub traces the roots of the idea of liberalism with such nuance and depth that even those steeped in political philosophy will gain insight--still more those of us who simply care about basic concepts of governance. This is an invaluable guide to the crisis that now afflicts the West." (John Sexton, President Emeritus of New York University)
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- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In American Rule, Jared Yates Sexton upends those convenient fictions by laying bare the foundational myths at the heart of our collective American imagination. From the very origins of this nation, Americans in power have abused and subjugated others; enabling that corruption are the many myths of American exceptionalism and steadfast values, which are fed to the public and repeated across generations.
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Truth
- By Laurie on 09-28-20
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The Age of Illusions
- How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory
- By: Andrew Bacevich
- Narrated by: Andrew Bacevich, Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Washington establishment felt it had prevailed in a world-historical struggle. Our side had won, a verdict that was both decisive and irreversible. For the world’s “indispensable nation”, its “sole superpower”, the future looked very bright. History, having brought the United States to the very summit of power and prestige, had validated American-style liberal democratic capitalism as universally applicable.
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Needs an update
- By Scott Burton on 05-24-20
By: Andrew Bacevich
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Bland Fanatics
- Liberals, the West, and the Afterlives of Empire
- By: Pankaj Mishra
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In America and in England, faltering economies at home and failed wars abroad have generated a political and intellectual hysteria. It is a derangement manifested in a number of ways: nostalgia for imperialism, xenophobic paranoia, and denunciations of an allegedly intolerant left. These symptoms can be found even among the most informed of Anglo-America.
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Historical Liberalism on deathbed
- By Mehran Asdigha on 11-13-20
By: Pankaj Mishra
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A New Textbook of Americanism
- By: Jonathan Hoenig - editor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hoenig
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Most people have no idea what the United States represents. Ayn Rand did grasp America's political essence down to its roots. Seventy-two years in the making, this book illuminates why the United States is "the only moral country in the history of the world" and features never-before-published discussions with Ayn Rand, plus work from Leonard Peikoff and the New Intellectuals.
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A Great Introduction to Objectionism
- By Lester C Liby on 06-27-19
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Liberal Fascism
- The Secret History of the American Left
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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"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?
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Great book
- By Mark on 05-10-08
By: Jonah Goldberg
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The Light That Failed
- Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy
- By: Ivan Krastev, Stephen Holmes
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance? In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only there but also back in the heartland of the West. In this brilliant work of political history, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that the supposed end of Communism turned out to be only the beginning of the age of the autocrat.
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Great text
- By Safronov on 05-03-21
By: Ivan Krastev, and others
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The Inevitability of Tragedy
- Henry Kissinger and His World
- By: Barry Gewen
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Few public officials have provoked such intense controversy as Henry Kissinger. During his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, he came to be admired and hated in equal measure. Notoriously, he believed that foreign affairs ought to be based primarily on the power relationships of a situation, not simply on ethics. He went so far as to argue that under certain circumstances America had to protect its national interests even if that meant repressing other countries' attempts at democracy.
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Interesting but rambles
- By K on 02-17-21
By: Barry Gewen
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These Truths
- A History of the United States
- By: Jill Lepore
- Narrated by: Jill Lepore
- Length: 29 hrs
- Unabridged
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In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation. In riveting prose, These Truths tells the story of America, beginning in 1492, to ask whether the course of events has proven the nation's founding truths or belied them.
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Good Story but distracting sound engineering
- By MindSpiker on 11-21-18
By: Jill Lepore
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This America
- The Case for the Nation
- By: Jill Lepore
- Narrated by: Jill Lepore
- Length: 2 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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At a time of much despair over the future of liberal democracy, Harvard historian Jill Lepore makes a stirring case for the nation in This America. Since the end of the Cold War, Lepore writes, American historians have largely retreated from the idea of "the nation", in part because the rise of political nationalism has rendered it suspect and unpalatable. Bucking this trend, however, Lepore argues forcefully that the nation demands scrutiny. Without an honest reckoning with America's collective past, we will be at the mercy of unscrupulous demagogues....
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Important
- By Shannon Caldwell on 01-27-20
By: Jill Lepore
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We the Fallen People
- The Founders and the Future of American Democracy
- By: Robert Tracy McKenzie
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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We the Fallen People presents a close look at the ideas of human nature to be found in the history of American democratic thought. McKenzie, following C. S. Lewis, claims there are only two reasons to believe in majority rule: because we have confidence in human nature - or because we don't. The Founders subscribed to the biblical principle that humans are fallen and their virtue is always doubtful, and they wrote the US Constitution to frame a republic intended to handle our weaknesses.
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Thoughtful reflection and historical perspective, but ultimately no easy answer
- By Brandon on 03-28-23
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Identity
- The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decay, as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to “the people”, who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole.
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Robotic narrator
- By Shahin on 09-19-18
By: Francis Fukuyama
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The Socialist Temptation
- By: Iain Murray
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Just 30 years ago, socialism seemed utterly discredited. An economic, moral, and political failure, socialism had rightly been thrown on the ash heap of history after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately, bad ideas never truly go away — and socialism has come back with a vengeance. A generation of young people who don’t remember the misery that socialism inflicted on Russia and Eastern Europe is embracing it all over again.
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Full Of Important Insights
- By Ralph Alderson on 12-17-20
By: Iain Murray