Book Club - Freedom from Fear: An Incomplete History of Liberalism by Alan Kahan

Note: Registration opens one month in advance.

ABSTRACT

A provocative new history of liberalism that also provides a road map for today’s liberals

Freedom from Fear offers a striking new account of the dominant political and social theory of our time: liberalism. In a pathbreaking reframing of the historical debate, Alan Kahan charts the development of Western liberalism from the late eighteenth century to the present. Examining key liberal thinkers and issues, Kahan shows how liberalism is both a response to fear and a source of hope: the search for a world in which no one need be afraid.

Freedom from Fear reveals how liberal arguments typically rely on three pillars: freedom, markets, and morals. But when liberals ignore one or more of these pillars, their arguments generally fail to persuade. Extending from Adam Smith and Montesquieu to today’s battles between liberals and populists, the book examines the twists and turns of the “incomplete” or unfinished liberal tradition while demonstrating its fundamental continuity. It combines fresh accounts of familiar figures such as Tocqueville and Rawls with discussions of less-famous but pivotal thinkers such as A. V. Dicey and Jane Addams, and explores how liberals have dealt with crucial issues, from debates over male and female suffrage to colonialism and liberal anti-Catholicism.

By transforming our understanding of the history of liberal thought and practice, Freedom from Fear provides a new picture of the political creed today: the paths liberals need to follow, the questions they need to answer, and the dead ends they must avoid—if they are to win.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alan S. Kahan received his Ph.D. in History from The University of Chicago in 1987, and is currently Professor of British Civilization at the Université de Paris-Saclay. He is a Senior Member emeritus of the Insitut Universitaire de France, and previously he was Professor of History at Florida International University in Miami. Besides the books found on this page he has also translated Tocqueville’s The Old Regime and the Revolution: Volume 1, The complete Text, and Volume 2, Notes on the French Revolution and Napoleon, and Benjamin Constant’s Commentary on Filangieri’s Work.