What do you think?
Rate this book
What Was Liberalism?: The Past, Present, and Promise of a Noble Idea
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 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.
Donald Trump is the first American president to regard liberal values with open contempt. He has 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.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published September 24, 2019
17 people are currently reading
340 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 9, 2019
If I were a freshman poli sci professor I think I would make this required reading. Now, mind you, I found the early chapters a little slow going, but despite that they reawakened some of my sophomore poli science days.
I guess I'm yet an old liberal at heart, though of the social democratic variety, on the pragmatic side. And I guess that's is what is rubbing me the wrong way, politically, these days is the unwillingness for even political allies on the left to make compromises in order to advance the agenda. Of course I'm also of the opinion that some who pose as "progressives" are really "regressives" since many seem to be comfortably ensconced in the upper levels of the hereditary meritocracy. I mean why would people in the Democratic establishment $250,000 per year middle class or the Republican $450,000 per year middle class really want to give up the perks of their status, despite protestations to the contrary.
I think this is a book of middling importance. In other words it is of the moment. But what a moment in which it was written!
I guess I'm yet an old liberal at heart, though of the social democratic variety, on the pragmatic side. And I guess that's is what is rubbing me the wrong way, politically, these days is the unwillingness for even political allies on the left to make compromises in order to advance the agenda. Of course I'm also of the opinion that some who pose as "progressives" are really "regressives" since many seem to be comfortably ensconced in the upper levels of the hereditary meritocracy. I mean why would people in the Democratic establishment $250,000 per year middle class or the Republican $450,000 per year middle class really want to give up the perks of their status, despite protestations to the contrary.
I think this is a book of middling importance. In other words it is of the moment. But what a moment in which it was written!
November 8, 2019
What's the difference between progressive and liberal? What's the difference between leftist and liberal? There is a difference.
This is a great book analyzing the Whiggish origins of what we now call liberalism and its various strains and how it got to the point now where it is dead or dying in so many places in the world. I suspect the reaction to this book will vary greatly by the reader's age.
Younger readers will probably find Traub's last chapter revolting for its discussion of the impacts of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism on liberal government itself.
I'm a liberal in Traub's sense, not in the sense of an epithet as used by the right, or in the generic wishy-washy way some use it.
To be continued…
This is a great book analyzing the Whiggish origins of what we now call liberalism and its various strains and how it got to the point now where it is dead or dying in so many places in the world. I suspect the reaction to this book will vary greatly by the reader's age.
Younger readers will probably find Traub's last chapter revolting for its discussion of the impacts of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism on liberal government itself.
I'm a liberal in Traub's sense, not in the sense of an epithet as used by the right, or in the generic wishy-washy way some use it.
To be continued…
July 30, 2020
Most of the book was 5 stars, absolutely incredible. It was very well researched and presented in a very unbiased way. However, though I agreed with the author’s assessment of the problems that ail western post-liberalist society, I strongly disagreed with his proposed solutions. Somehow, I also suspect most of the liberalist thinkers and rulers he wrote about would also disagree.
December 18, 2019
Part history, part political commentary, part apologetics for liberalism as a political philosophy, and part critique of liberalism’s failures in the pragmatic realm and part an affirmation that its principles and applications are the best yet as the creeping shadow of authoritarianism creeps across the globe, it is a call for those committed to liberal principles to think hard and work harder in keeping the “dreams of a liberal order” alive. The author provides assessments of other resources to study on the subjects of liberal values, economics, and human rights.
April 30, 2022
A nondescript anti-Trump book cleverly hidden under the title What Was Liberalism? You got me, James Traub.
Traub's gist is that all politicians were a variation of liberal even if identified under different political parties; republican or democrat. Trump came along and now we're ruined as a country and as a people and blah, blah, blah.
From page 3:
[L]iberalism first arose as a corrective to systems of majority rule. James Madison famously warned of the dangers of the "tyranny of the majority,"....There is no inherent reason why the unlimited right of free speech, or the right to do as you wish so long as it doesn't harm others, should enjoy majority support. Some core liberal principals, such as protecting the rights of political minorities, or of any kind of minorities, are counter majoritarian.
Some early liberals were deeply skeptical that individual freedom could be reconciled with majority rule at all. [W]hat matters most, in the end, are not explicit rules but values and habits, or what we would now call "norms": freedom of speech, for example, will survive only so long as people are prepared to defend it.
This was the great lesson of the rise of totalitarianism in the middle of the twentieth century. Though Weimar Germany was formally liberal and democratic, the German people ultimately acquiesced to the surrender of their liberties in the name of an immense collective purpose.
Exactly.
Too bad this was written before March 2020. The democratic and RINO response to COVID were the antithesis of totalitarianism how? However you want to dress up and propagandize tyranny by labeling it greater good or "to protect all of us," it is what it is.
During a 20 year liberal stint voting straight democrat, the liberalism James Traub credits to his "side" is what I believed my card-carrying-democrat self was supporting. You can imagine the shock when I began to compare my fantasy against the reality of the democratic party. So, for subsequent ten years I threw away my independently registered vote on third party candidates. Then in March of 2020, I had to make a severe change. Not because of any deep love or adoration for Orange Man. No. Because the liberal party is so far delusionally removed from John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocquerville's vision, I'm having to vote republican for the first time ever. Disgusting.
Mr. Traub juxtaposes illiberalism (Trump supporters) with consensual liberalism (traditional dem and repub politicians). Does he realize that by bringing consensual liberalism's harmonious relationship to the fore, he proves the context by which people support Trump? In the "swamp," all politicians get along quite well because they're all lying, thieving crooks following a prescribed agenda.
In Aaron Russo's America From Freedom to Fascism, documentary, he points out all politicians are playing poker. Now and then one will stand up and shoot someone sitting at their table, but they're all in it together protecting each other's interests. Consensual liberalism is not a compliment; it's a tip of the hat to endemic corruption.
Page 6: The state must be designed in such a way as to protect individuals from all forms of arbitrary power, an axiom made explicit in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution. Can we have Mr. Traub update us on his thoughts in the aftermath of March, 2020? Any guesses as to his support of mandates? Noam Chomsky was the biggest disappointment in the Covid era. I would suppose Traub follows Chomsky's lead, regardless of his hallucinatory words in this book.
I'd like to give this 2 stars, but the historical references are really interesting, so I'm sticking with 3 stars.
Traub's gist is that all politicians were a variation of liberal even if identified under different political parties; republican or democrat. Trump came along and now we're ruined as a country and as a people and blah, blah, blah.
From page 3:
[L]iberalism first arose as a corrective to systems of majority rule. James Madison famously warned of the dangers of the "tyranny of the majority,"....There is no inherent reason why the unlimited right of free speech, or the right to do as you wish so long as it doesn't harm others, should enjoy majority support. Some core liberal principals, such as protecting the rights of political minorities, or of any kind of minorities, are counter majoritarian.
Some early liberals were deeply skeptical that individual freedom could be reconciled with majority rule at all. [W]hat matters most, in the end, are not explicit rules but values and habits, or what we would now call "norms": freedom of speech, for example, will survive only so long as people are prepared to defend it.
This was the great lesson of the rise of totalitarianism in the middle of the twentieth century. Though Weimar Germany was formally liberal and democratic, the German people ultimately acquiesced to the surrender of their liberties in the name of an immense collective purpose.
Exactly.
Too bad this was written before March 2020. The democratic and RINO response to COVID were the antithesis of totalitarianism how? However you want to dress up and propagandize tyranny by labeling it greater good or "to protect all of us," it is what it is.
During a 20 year liberal stint voting straight democrat, the liberalism James Traub credits to his "side" is what I believed my card-carrying-democrat self was supporting. You can imagine the shock when I began to compare my fantasy against the reality of the democratic party. So, for subsequent ten years I threw away my independently registered vote on third party candidates. Then in March of 2020, I had to make a severe change. Not because of any deep love or adoration for Orange Man. No. Because the liberal party is so far delusionally removed from John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocquerville's vision, I'm having to vote republican for the first time ever. Disgusting.
Mr. Traub juxtaposes illiberalism (Trump supporters) with consensual liberalism (traditional dem and repub politicians). Does he realize that by bringing consensual liberalism's harmonious relationship to the fore, he proves the context by which people support Trump? In the "swamp," all politicians get along quite well because they're all lying, thieving crooks following a prescribed agenda.
In Aaron Russo's America From Freedom to Fascism, documentary, he points out all politicians are playing poker. Now and then one will stand up and shoot someone sitting at their table, but they're all in it together protecting each other's interests. Consensual liberalism is not a compliment; it's a tip of the hat to endemic corruption.
Page 6: The state must be designed in such a way as to protect individuals from all forms of arbitrary power, an axiom made explicit in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution. Can we have Mr. Traub update us on his thoughts in the aftermath of March, 2020? Any guesses as to his support of mandates? Noam Chomsky was the biggest disappointment in the Covid era. I would suppose Traub follows Chomsky's lead, regardless of his hallucinatory words in this book.
I'd like to give this 2 stars, but the historical references are really interesting, so I'm sticking with 3 stars.
June 25, 2022
I learned a lot about what liberalism has meant through the centuries, and the difference between what Americans mean by the term versus what Europeans mean,
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews