Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Beginnings
- 2 The Rhetoric of the Market: Adam Smith on Recognition, Speech, and Exchange
- 3 Agonistic Liberalism: Adam Ferguson on Modern Commercial Society and the Limits of Classical Republicanism
- 4 After the King: Thomas Paine's and James Madison's Institutional Liberalism
- 5 Embracing Liberalism: Germaine de Staël's Farewell to Republicanism
- 6 On the Liberty of the Moderns: Benjamin Constant and the Discovery of an Immanent Liberalism
- 7 After Republicanism: A Coda
- Index
- References
1 - Beginnings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Beginnings
- 2 The Rhetoric of the Market: Adam Smith on Recognition, Speech, and Exchange
- 3 Agonistic Liberalism: Adam Ferguson on Modern Commercial Society and the Limits of Classical Republicanism
- 4 After the King: Thomas Paine's and James Madison's Institutional Liberalism
- 5 Embracing Liberalism: Germaine de Staël's Farewell to Republicanism
- 6 On the Liberty of the Moderns: Benjamin Constant and the Discovery of an Immanent Liberalism
- 7 After Republicanism: A Coda
- Index
- References
Summary
At a challenging time marked by global transformations and political uncertainty, and at a moment when modern liberalism has discredited one enemy and is embattled with another, its history, character, and prospects have become ever more urgent. The relationship between republicanism and liberalism, which emerged as a central issue for historians of modern political thought some decades ago, presently can aid such a consideration.
At first, this subject defined an important axis of debate among political historians, especially as they discovered republicanism as an alternative to the liberal tradition in colonial America and the early republic. Studies of the links joining liberalism to an older republicanism then migrated to political theory and to comparative, cross-national investigations. Animated by strong normative motivations, these works have taken what is, by now, a familiar form, where one or the other is endorsed as the superior doctrine and as a better guide to contemporary politics and society. Speaking directly to the standing and possibilities of liberalism today, such discussions consider a range of issues that include tensions joining virtue and self-interest, the common and the personal, sovereignty and representation, authority and freedom, law and ethics.
We contribute to this ongoing conversation by way of a historical and textual strategy. In coming to terms with liberal beginnings, we examine the association – or is it a bond? – connecting liberalism and republicanism. We revisit the origins and development of liberal thought to think about how it ascended, despite many challenges, to today's leading position.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Liberal BeginningsMaking a Republic for the Moderns, pp. 1 - 17Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
References
, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992Google Scholar
, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787, Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1998Google Scholar
, “Civic Humanism and Its Role in Anglo-American Thought,” in Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, pp. 80–103Google Scholar
, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975Google Scholar
, “Toward a Republican Synthesis: The Emergence of an Understanding of Republicanism in American Historiography,” William and Mary Quarterly, 29 (1972), pp. 49–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Republicanism and Early American Historiography,” William and Mary Quarterly, 29 (1982), pp. 334–356CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Liberalism and the American Revolution,” New England Quarterly, 49:1 (1976), pp. 3–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “The Social Origins of American Revolutionary Ideology,” Journal of American History, 64:4 (1978), pp. 935–958CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Liberalism and Republicanism in Historical Imagination, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992Google Scholar
, “The Liberal Tradition Revisited and the Republican Tradition Addressed,” in New Directions in American Intellectual History, ed. and , Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979, pp. 116–131Google Scholar
, “Republican Revisionism Revisited,” American Historical Review, 87:3 (1982), pp. 629–664CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “The ‘Great National Discussion’: The Discourse of Politics in 1787,” William and Mary Quarterly, 45:1 (1988), pp. 3–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The Lost Soul of American Politics: Virtue, Self-Interest, and the Foundations of Liberalism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986Google Scholar
, “From Republicanism to Liberalism: Ideological Change and the Crisis of the Old South,” American Quarterly, 37:4 (1985), pp. 551–571CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “The Republican Ideology of the Revolutionary Generation,” American Quarterly, 37:4 (1985), pp. 474–495CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Jeffersonian Ideology Revised: Liberal and Classical Ideas in the New American Republic,” William and Mary Quarterly, 43:1 (1986), pp. 3–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Liberalism, Republicanism, and the Constitution,” Polity, 19 (1987), pp. 331–352CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Republicanism and Liberalism in American Constitutional Thought,” William and Mary Law Review, 29 (1987), pp. 57–74Google Scholar
, The Spirit of Modern Republicanism: The Moral Vision of the American Founders and the Philosophy of Locke, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988Google Scholar
, “Republicanism: The Career of a Concept,” Journal of American History, 79:1 (1992), pp. 11–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and , eds., The Republican Synthesis Revisited: Essays in Honor of George Athan Billias, Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1992
, The Natural Rights Republic: Studies in the Foundation of the American Political Tradition, Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996Google Scholar
, “Republicanism vs. Liberalism? A Reconsideration,” History of Political Thought, 9 (1988), pp. 349–377Google Scholar
, “Beyond the Republican Revival,” Yale Law Journal, 97:8 (1988), pp. 1539–1590CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Liberalism and Republicanism,” Australian Journal of Political Science, 28 (1993), pp. 162–189CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Three Normative Models of Democracy,” in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, ed. , Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996, pp. 21–30Google Scholar
, Natural Rights and the New Republicanism, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994Google Scholar
, The Sacred Fire of Liberty: Republicanism, Liberalism and the Law, New York: New York University Press, 1998CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Libéralisme et Républicanisme, Cahiers de Philosophie de l'Université de Caen, Caen: Centre de Philosophie de l'Université de Caen, 2000Google Scholar
, Citizens and Citoyens: Republicans and Liberals in America and France, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
, A Theory of Freedom: From Psychology to a Politics of Agency, New York: Polity Press, 2001.Google Scholar
, “Virtues, Rights, and Manners: A Model for Historians of Political Thought,” in Virtue, Commerce, History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Utopia and Reform in the Enlightenment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971, pp. 22–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments, New York: Knopf, 2004Google Scholar
, “What Is Freedom?” in Between Past and Present, New York: Penguin Books, 1961, pp. 143–172Google Scholar
, Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History, New York: Atheneum, 1971, p. 144Google Scholar
, “Virtue and Commerce in the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 3 (1972), pp. 120, 124–129CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Cambridge School and Scottish Enlightenment,” in Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. and , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 244–250Google Scholar
, “Independence and Attachment, Virtue and Interest: From Republican Citizen to Free Enterpriser,” in Uprooted Americans: Essays to Honor Oscar Handlin, ed. , Boston: Little, Brown, 1979, pp. 97–124Google Scholar
, “A Different Thermidor: The Revolution beyond the American Revolution,” in Transformation of Early American History: Society, Authority and Ideology, ed. , New York: Knopf, 1991, pp. 170–193.Google Scholar
, “Self-Interest Conquers Patriotism: Republicans, Liberals, and Indians Reshape the Nation,” in The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits, ed. , New York: New York University Press, 1987, pp. 224–229Google Scholar
, “The Republican Critique of Liberalism,” British Journal of Political Science, 26:1 (1996), pp. 25–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , “Revolutionaries, Antifederalists, and Federalists: Comments on Gordon Wood's Understanding of the American Revolution,” Political Science Reviewer, 9 (1979), pp. 195–229.Google Scholar
, “Ideology and the Origins of Liberal America,” William and Mary Quarterly, 44:3 (1987), p. 635Google Scholar
, Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, Civic Liberalism: Reflections on Our Democratic Ideals, New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999Google Scholar
, Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997Google Scholar
, Reconstructing the Commercial Republic: Constitutional Design after Madison, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006Google Scholar
, Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
- 1
- Cited by