Helena ROSENBLATT, The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

“It is never a waste of time to study the history of a word.” It is with these suggestive words of the French historian Lucien Febvre that Helena Rosenblatt begins her last book The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century. By studying the history of the word liberalism, Rosenblatt attempts a clarification of what happens to be a catch-all term encompassing very different thinkers, political actors and followers. While liberalism is often seen as a mainly Angl...