In Search of the Liberal Moment - by S Sawyer (Paperback)

About the Book

"The revival of liberal thought in France during the 1970s and 1980s is one of the most remarkable developments in contemporary European intellectual history, yet it remains surprisingly understudied. In this book, British, American, and French scholars offer a fresh take on France's late twentieth-century liberal revival and examines how neo-liberalism in France developed and influenced contemporary French politics and policy. The book opens with a critical introduction which defines the notion of a French liberal renaissance, examines the existing historiography, and sets out the new questions which the contributors to this volume have sought to address. The ideological heterogeneity of the liberal renaissance is explored in Part I, which examines the origins and orientations of its left, centrist, and conservative variants. Part II critiques the liberal revival and reconsiders the significance of two figures whose work informed it: Franocois Furet and Michel Foucault. The final part of the book examines how the neo-liberalism of the Chicago and Austrian schools of economic thought was repackaged for French audiences, and examines the emergence of new forms of French anti-liberalism which emerged in response. The book concludes with an epilogue which considers the legacy of the liberal revival in contemporary France"--

From the Back Cover

This book explores a series of challenging new perspectives on the origins, development, and legacy of France's 'liberal moment' during the second half of the twentieth century. It surveys a significant shift in interest regarding socio-political philosophy and culture, with the 1970s emergence of a blossoming French curiosity about liberalism and liberal thought. While liberalism had played an important role in French political debate prior to this period, liberal voices were often disregarded. It was not until this newfound fascination with liberalism by French intellectuals--spanning from the second left to the new right--that a French liberal revival truly occurred. In Search of the Liberal Moment addresses this revival, its resultant resuscitation of nineteenth-century authors like Tocqueville and Constant, its relationship with the contemporary rise of neoliberalism in Britain and the US, and how its adherents used liberalism to rethink the past, present, and future of modern democracy.

Review Quotes

"The title of this collection of essays is appropriate, since in the past several generations 'liberalism' has tended to be elusive and to have a largely negative connotation in France. ... For graduate students and specialists. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and faculty." (W. Safran, Choice, Vol. 54 (5), January, 2017)

About the Author

Stephen W. Sawyer is an Associate Professor and Chair of the History Department at the American University of Paris, France.

Iain Stewart is a Lecturer in modern European history at University College London, UK, and is currently writing a monograph on Raymond Aron's place in the history of liberal thought in France and internationally.