Description
MONOGRAPHS ON WESTERN CIVILISATION
Liberalism: A short history
Western Civilisation owes the word ‘liberal’ to the Spanish War of Independence (1808-14) where the Ziberales, who wanted individual rights and an end to feudal privilege, were faced against the serviles, who supported the monarchy and aristocracy.
As Richard Allsop points out in this engrossing and comprehensive short history, when it arrived in England, ‘liberal’ was first used as a term of abuse.
Liberalism has remained one of the most contested political philosophies.
Richard Allsop traces the rise of liberalism with John Locke and the Levellers, its fall in the carly twentieth century against progressivism and Fabian socialism, and its re-emergence with Friedrich Hayek and politicians such as Margaret Thatcher.
This book is a powerful retelling of Western Civilisation’s greatest story: the emergence, decline, and revival of the philosophy of liberty and individual rights.
The essential features of our free society—civil society, liberal democracy, the rule of law, individual rights, and personal responsibility—are the inheritance of centuries of Western Civilisation. The Foundations of Western Civilisation Program secks to defend and extend Australians’ understanding of that inheritance.
The Foundations of Western Civilisation Program is a program of the Institute of Public Affairs and Mannkal Economic Education Foundation.
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