In Search of European Liberalisms: Concepts, Languages, Ideologies

by Michael Freeden (Editor), Javier Fernández-Sebastián (Editor), Jörn Leonhard (Editor)

Since the Enlightenment, liberalism as a concept has been foundational for European identity and politics, even as it has been increasingly interrogated and contested. This comprehensive study takes a fresh look at the diverse understandings and interpretations of the idea of liberalism in Europe, encompassing not just the familiar movements, doctrines, and political parties that fall under the heading of “liberal” but also the intertwined historical currents of thought behind them. Here we find not an abstract, universalized liberalism, but a complex and overlapping configuration of liberalisms tied to diverse linguistic, temporal, and political contexts.

Genres: Politics, History

352 pages, Paperback

Published November 11, 2022

About the author

Michael Freeden is a professor of Political Ideology in the University of Nottingham's Politics and International Relations department. He is also the founding editor of the Journal of Political Ideologies. He was previously an academic at the University of Oxford.

Reviews

[Jackson B]

A series of essays about European liberalisms, their family resemblances and histories in specific national contexts. Conceptually, I thought the last essay by Michael Freeden was the best explanation of the layers of (British) liberalism, but maybe this was just because I had read a whole book and felt better acquainted with the ideas. I enjoyed every chapter, but some of them were definitely clearer than others. Some quick take aways: there is no one defining feature of liberalism universal across time or country; liberalism grew up as a political movement associated with the older concept of liberality; & “conceptual morphology” and “Sattelzeit”. I wish I were a little more acquainted with Koselleck (the name that’s repeated the most in the volume) and the introductory essay confused me with its technical language (and it’s the beginning of the book?), but it’s an otherwise perfectly intelligible work.