Adam Shortt began teaching political economy at Queen's University in the late 1880s. His theories attracted students and faculty who were interested in applying the new tenets of economics and political science to questions of Canadian public policy. The concerns of the group that formed around Shortt were broad and self-consciously cumulative, a perspective promoted particularly by Shortt's colleague and successor O.D. Skelton. The group encouraged reassessment of the role of the social scientist in the university and society, and analysed contentious economic and political questions of the day. Addressing economic policies such as industrialization, foreign investment, labour-business relations, and prairie settlement, they examined the political and governmental ramifications of economic problems, concentrating on the role of political parties, the broad role of government, the place of the public service, and ethnic, class, and regional political relations. Ferguson demonstrates that Shortt, Skelton, Clark, and Mackintosh clearly argued on behalf of the new liberalism, emphasizing individual rights and positive government. He suggests that their ideas reveal an intellectual position which differed from the imperialist and continentalist alternatives that dominated Canadian thinking at the time.
"In the Shadow of Justice tells the story of how liberal political philosophy was transformed in the second half of the twentieth century under the influence of John Rawls. In this first-ever history of contemporary liberal theory, Katrina Forrester shows how liberal egalitarianism--a set of ideas about justice, equality, obligation, and the state--became dominant, and traces its emergence from the political and ideological context of the postwar United States and Britain. In the aftermath of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, Rawls's A Theory of Justice made a particular kind of liberalism essential to political philosophy. Using archival sources, Forrester explores the ascent and legacy of this form of liberalism by examining its origins in midcentury debates among American antistatists and British egalitarians. She traces the roots of contemporary theories of justice and inequality, civil disobedience, just war, global and intergenerational justice, and population ethics in the 1960s and '70s and beyond. In these years, political philosophers extended, developed, and reshaped this liberalism as they responded to challenges and alternatives on the left and right--from the New International Economic Order to the rise of the New Right. These thinkers remade political philosophy in ways that influenced not only their own trajectory but also that of their critics. Recasting the history of late twentieth-century political thought and providing novel interpretations and fresh perspectives on major political philosophers, In the Shadow of Justice offers a rigorous look at liberalism's ambitions and limits."--
Ferguson considers the thinking of four major Canadian political economists who developed their ideas while building the discipline of political economy at Queen's University. He demonstrates that the four clearly argued on behalf of the new liberalism, emphasizing individual rights and positive government, and suggests that their ideas reveal an intellectual position which differed from the imperialist and continentalist alternatives that dominated Canadian thinking at the time. Canadian call number: C93-090262-9. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
In these divided and divisive times, what is the future course for our politics? In this ground-breaking book, Nick Timothy, one of Britain’s leading conservative thinkers and commentators, explores the powerful forces driving great changes in our economy, society and democracy. Drawing on his experience at the top of government, Timothy traces the crisis of Western democracy back to both the mistaken assumptions of philosophical liberalism and the rise of ideological ultra-liberalism on left, right and centre. Sparing no sacred cows, he proposes a new kind of conservatism that respects personal freedom but also demands solidarity. He argues that only by rediscovering a unifying sense of the common good and restoring a mutual web of responsibilities between all citizens and institutions can we reject the extremes of economic and cultural liberalism, overcome our divisions, and remake one nation. He goes on to outline an ambitious practical plan for change, covering issues ranging from immigration to the regulation of Big Tech. Nick Timothy’s original, forensic and thought-provoking analysis is a must-read for anybody tired by the old dogmas of the liberal left, right and centre. It is a major contribution to the debate on the future of conservatism as it grapples with geopolitical shifts, cultural change, and economic uncertainty.
In Remaking Policy, Carolyn Hughes Tuohy advances an ambitious new approach to understanding the relationship between political context and policy change.
The Rowell-Sirois Commission and the Remaking of Canadian Federalism investigates the groundbreaking inquiry launched to reconstruct Canada’s federal system. In 1937, the Canadian confederation was broken. As the Depression ground on, provinces faced increasing obligations but limited funds, while the dominion had fewer responsibilities but lucrative revenue sources. The commission’s report proposed a bold new form of federalism based on the national collection and unconditional transfers of major tax revenues to the provinces. While the proposal was not immediately adopted, this incisive study demonstrates that the commission’s innovative findings went on to shape policy and thinking about federalism for decades.
Based on in-depth research in Poland and Slovakia, Domesticating Neo-Liberalism addresses how we understand the processes of neo-liberalization in post-socialist cities. Builds upon a vast amount of new research data Examines how households try to sustain their livelihoods at particularly dramatic and difficult times of urban transformation Provides a major contribution to how we theorize the geographies of neo-liberalism Offers a conclusion which informs discussions of social policy within European Union enlargement
In this, his last work, J. David Greenstone provides an important new analysis of American liberalism and of Lincoln's unique contribution to the nation's political life. Greenstone addresses Louis Hartz's well-known claim that a tradition of liberal consensus has characterized American political life from the time of the founders. Although he acknowledges the force of Hartz's thesis, Greenstone nevertheless finds it inadequate for explaining prominent instances of American political discord, most notably the Civil War. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Eight prominent scholars consider whether Louis Hartz's interpretation of liberalism in his classic 1955 book should be repudiated or updated, and whether a study of America as a "liberal society" is still a rewarding undertaking.
The first panoramic history of the Western world from the 1970s to the present day—from the Cold War to the 2008 financial crisis and wars in the Middle East—Empire of Democracy is “a superbly informed and riveting historical analysis of our contemporary era” (Charles S. Maier, Harvard University). Half a century ago, at the height of the Cold War and amidst a world economic crisis, the Western democracies were forced to undergo a profound transformation. Against what some saw as a full-scale “crisis of democracy”—with race riots, anti-Vietnam marches and a wave of worker discontent sowing crisis from one nation to the next—a new political-economic order was devised and the postwar social contract was torn up and written anew. In this epic narrative of the events that have shaped our own times, Simon Reid-Henry shows how liberal democracy, and western history with it, was profoundly reimagined when the postwar Golden Age ended. As the institutions of liberal rule were reinvented, a new generation of politicians emerged: Thatcher, Reagan, Mitterrand, Kohl. The late twentieth century heyday they oversaw carried the Western democracies triumphantly to victory in the Cold War and into the economic boom of the 1990s. But equally it led them into the fiasco of Iraq, to the high drama of the financial crisis in 2007/8, and ultimately to the anti-liberal surge of our own times. The present crisis of liberalism is leading us toward as yet unscripted decades. The era we have all been living through is closing out, and democracy is turning on its axis once again. “Brilliantly, Reid-Henry calls for the salvation of democracy from the choices of its own leaders if it is to survive” (Samuel Moyn, Yale University).
From the first days of his unexpected presidency in April 1945 through the landmark NSC 68 of 1950, Harry Truman was central to the formation of America’s grand strategy during the Cold War and the subsequent remaking of U.S. foreign policy. Others are frequently associated with the terminology of and responses to the perceived global Communist threat after the Second World War: Walter Lippmann popularized the term “cold war,” and George F. Kennan first used the word “containment” in a strategic sense. Although Kennan, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall have been seen as the most influential architects of American Cold War foreign policy, The First Cold Warrior draws on archives and other primary sources to demonstrate that Harry Truman was the key decision maker in the critical period between 1945 and 1950. In a significant reassessment of the thirty-third president and his political beliefs, Elizabeth Edwards Spalding contends that it was Truman himself who defined and articulated the theoretical underpinnings of containment. His practical leadership style was characterized by policies and institutions such as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, NATO, the Berlin airlift, the Department of Defense, and the National Security Council. Part of Truman’s unique approach—shaped by his religious faith and dedication to anti-communism—was to emphasize the importance of free peoples, democratic institutions, and sovereign nations. With these values, he fashioned a new liberal internationalism, distinct from both Woodrow Wilson’s progressive internationalism and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s liberal pragmatism, which still shapes our politics. Truman deserves greater credit for understanding the challenges of his time and for being America’s first cold warrior. This reconsideration of Truman’s overlooked statesmanship provides a model for interpreting the international crises facing the United States in this new era of ideological conflict.
Packed with fascinating data that paints a provocative picture of the new rich In Fortunes of Change, David Callahan contends that something big is happening among the rich in America: they’re drifting to the left. When Callahan set out to write a book on the new upper class, he expected to profile a greedy and reactionary elite—the robber barons of a second Gilded Age. Instead, he discovered something else. While many of the rich still back a GOP that stands against taxes and regulation, liberalism is spreading fast among the wealthy. In Fortunes of Change, we meet an upper class increasingly filled with super-educated professionals and entrepreneurs who work in “knowledge” industries and live in the bluest parts of America. This cosmopolitan elite takes for granted such key liberal ideas as multiculturalism and active government, and have ever less in common with an extremist GOP based in small-town America and dominated by Tea Party activists and the likes of Sarah Palin. Fortunes of Change explores: Why some of America’s wealthiest people backed Barack Obama’s presidential bid and are pouring record sums into the Democratic Party and liberal organizations, even though they stand to see their taxes go up. How a few big donors have spent millions to create the modern gay rights movement and how environmental activists have tapped a river of new liberal cash. Why Hollywood, rolling in new profits thanks to globalization, has more money than ever to back Democratic candidates and push politics to the left. Why Silicon Valley is turning more liberal and how tech money—including Bill Gates’s vast fortune—is funding a growing array of liberal groups and politicians. How the upper class is likely to get more liberal as young heirs are inculcated with liberal ideas in America’s most elite prep schools and universities. David Callahan is a co-founder of the think tank Demos, where he is now a senior fellow. He is author of the Cheating Culture, among other books, and his articles have appeared in such places as USA Today, the New York Times, the Nation, and the Washington Monthly. Packed with surprising facts and behind-the-scene stories, Fortunes of Change is a must-read book if want to understand how America's politics and culture are changing—and what the future may hold.
