Liberal Community Research Articles

‘(Im-)proper’ members with ‘(im-)proper’ families? – Framing spousal migration policies in Germany

ABSTRACT Even more than other types of migration, liberal democracies allow family migration based on the recognition of the individual right to protection of marriage and family of their members. Restricting family migration, which is increasingly happening all over European states in the past two decades, is thus framed within the liberal rights paradigm. The article critically scrutinises the discursive strategies and categories of policy-makers in Germany employed to justify restricting spousal migration 2005–2010. Following the logic of a ‘liberal discursive constraint’, restrictive policies infringing upon the right to family protection are introduced and legitimised by political actors not by questioning or qualifying the right as such, but rather by constructing certain categories of ‘improper’ marriages and ‘improper’ members. Especially by co-opting the issue of gender equality, Muslim minorities in Germany are discursively positioned outside of the supposedly liberal national community and thus the infringement upon the protection of marriage and family is justified.

Using Platform Signals for Distinguishing Discourses: The Case of Men’s Rights and Men’s Liberation on Reddit

Reddit’s men’s rights community (/r/MensRights) has been criticized for the promotion of misogynistic language, toxic masculinity and discourses that reinforce alt-right ideologies. Conversely, the men’s liberation (/r/MensLib) community integrates inclusive politics, intersectionality and masculinity within a broad umbrella of self-reflection that suggests toxic masculinity harms men as well as women.
 We use machine learning text classifiers, keyword frequencies, and qualitative approaches first to distinguish these two subreddits, and second to interpret the differences ideologically rather than topically. We further integrate platform metadata (referred to as ‘platform signals’) to distinguish the subreddits. These signals help us understand how similar terms can be used to arrive at different interpretations of gender and discrimination. Where /r/MensLib tends to see masculinity as an adjective and women as peers, /r/MensRights views being a man as an essential quality, men as the target of discrimination, and women as sources of personalized grievances.

Non-Medical Sex Selection in Australia: Public Views and Bioethical Concerns

In 2017, following an extensive review of its ethical guidelines on assisted reproductive technology (ART), the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) upheld its moratorium on non-medical sex selection (NMSS) pending further public debate. Interestingly, the public consultation conducted by the NHMRC revealed a majority of submissions supported a permissive approach to NMSS, suggesting a potential shift in attitudes about NMSS in Australia. Historically, public consultation on NMSS both internationally and in Australia has revealed general opposition to this practice. This has reinforced concerns raised against NMSS in bioethical debates and been reflected in a restrictive regulatory approach to NMSS in many countries. The NHMRC public consultation highlights a potential disconnect between the concerns raised about NMSS in scholarly literature and more liberal community views. This paper reviews the submissions made to the NHMRC on NMSS and argues that the current moratorium should be revisited with a view to exploring a more nuanced approach to regulating NMSS in the future.

"The Saddest Man I Ever Knew": Ralph de Toledano and the Jewish Roots of American Conservatism

"The Saddest Man I Ever Knew":Ralph de Toledano and the Jewish Roots of American Conservatism Yoav Fromer1 (bio) Writer Ralph de Toledano's death in 2007 was met mostly with indifference. The handful of newspapers that did mark the solemn occasion referred to the Moroccan-born, New York-raised Jewish intellectual as "a friend of Nixon" and a "nonconformist conservative" while relegating him to a marginal place in the story of American conservatism.2 But having written several novels, poetry collections, and over twenty non-fiction books that ranged in topic from communist infiltration to the life of Robert F. Kennedy to the history of jazz, he was so much more. In addition to publishing countless articles in Newsweek, National Review, and King Features and other venues over a prolific seventy-year career, Toledano played a greater role in American politics than historians have acknowledged. It was his friend and colleague, National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., who observed the irony in which a man who had done so much for American conservatism was remembered so little. In a witty obituary that couched praise with censure, Buckley suggested that Toledano had been forgotten, partly because of his own standoffishness, and lamented: "It can't be predicted that this poet of melancholy will live on, other than in the archives."3 That is certainly where Toledano has been relegated, at least until now. Except for his correspondence with the influential anticommunist crusader, Whittaker Chambers, which was published in 1997 as Notes from the Underground, no study of Toledano's life or legacy has ever been completed. Appearing as a footnote in the biographies of central conservative figures that he befriended, like Chambers and Richard M. Nixon, or cast in a supporting role in broad historical studies of the conservative movement, Toledano remains, at least in public memory and [End Page 253] scholarship, a man who wasn't really present at creation.4 Even though he was: at every critical juncture in the initial stages of development of American conservatism, Toledano played some part. He was an intimate confidant of Chambers, a close friend of Buckley, and a dedicated supporter and advisor of Nixon from the onset of his career. According to historian Rick Perlstein, it was Toledano's adulation of Nixon in Seeds of Treason, the bestselling book he co-authored about the Alger Hiss trial, that brought the ambitious young congressman to the attention of Dwight Eisenhower and helped secure him the vice-presidential nomination in 1952: "Ike read the book and liked the cut of the young man's jib."5 It is not only from the historiography of conservatism that Toledano is conspicuously missing. Despite growing up in New York and studying at Columbia University in the 1930s under the notable literary critic Lionel Trilling, Toledano, who was born in Tangier to Jewish-American parents and descended from a famed Sephardic rabbinical dynasty that dated back to medieval Spain, has been completely left out of the numerous histories of the New York Intellectuals.6 The Washington Post obituary noted: "His political views migrated steadily rightward through the decades, a political path trodden by a number of leftist intellectuals from the 1930s and 1940s."7 But there was nothing common about Toledano's turn to the right. If anything, he had been one of the first Jewish intellectuals to clear that unmarked path: having grown up in a middle-class liberal home and dabbled with socialist ideas in college, [End Page 254] he had abandoned his leftist sympathies by the late 1930s, and never truly felt comfortable with either the radicalism nor liberalism of fellow New York Intellectuals, the famed group of writers, scholars, and critics who wrote for a handful of polemical magazines from the 1930s to the 1960s and redefined the American left. "I was never at home in the liberal community," Toledano wrote in his autobiography, explaining his early decision to "turn my back ideologically on Partisan Review which did not even know of my existence." As an editor at the anti-Stalinist magazine The New Leader in 1940, Toledano had already espoused staunch anticommunist ideas, to such a degree that during military...

A Brief History of Workforce Education in Community Colleges

ABSTRACTOver its 100-year plus history the community college has struggled to make clear its mission. As a comprehensive community college its mission has bounced around to focus on liberal arts, developmental, workforce, community, and general education. In today’s increasingly competitive society with shifting values and changes in power it is likely that workforce education/career and technical education will remain a foundational mission of the community college. Workforce education is strongly supported by state and federal legislators who demonstrate that support with billions of dollars. It is strongly supported by business and industry. And it is strongly supported by parents and students. This brief history captures many of the key issues and developments of the continuing evolution of workforce education in the community college.

Oblicza polskiego liberalizmu: formowanie się krakowskiego środowiska chrześcijańskich liberałów

Faces of liberalism: formation of a Christian liberal community in Krakow: The aim of the essay is to show the birth of the Kraków liberal community in the years 1977–1980. An attempt is made to reconstruct the main ideological assumptions of the liberal entourage in the context of the opposition activities of Robert Kaczmarek and Mirosław Dzielski. The author refers to the main events occurring in this period, such as the establishment of the Prywatna Inicjatywa Krakowska (Private Cracow Initiative) and the magazine Merkuryusz Krakowski i Światowy, as well as paying special attention to the program texts that were published in it. The article also contains a reconstruction of the debate aimed at classifying the views presented by Mirosław Dzielski.

Dressing the Part

A researcher with conservative clothing style could potentially confuse the women with whom she conducts research on contemporary Niddah practices, inviting accusations of unethically misrepresenting oneself to both the liberal and Orthodox communities in the Greater Phoenix Valley of Arizona, USA where the research will be conducted. This article reflects three years of wrestling with this dilemma, which has enabled the author to articulate and refine her current stance regarding researcher attire and broader ethical issues concerning power and representation in ethnographic research, as informed by her studies in critical ethnography and feminist methodologies. Drawing on Dwight Conquergood’s and D. Soyini Madison’s articulations of critical ethnography, the quality of the author’s ethnographic engagement leading up to the interviews should decode one’s attire and clarify questions about the researcher’s position, bias, and integrity. This methodology expresses itself through ethnographic strategies and interpersonal interactions with members of the communities. Additionally, this methodology requires the author and the community members to be mutually candid concerning their questions about their own menstrual practices, sex life, marital histories, and religious perspectives. More than establishing trust in the author’s emotional honesty and integrity as an academic, such candour levels the interviewer–interviewee playing field, critical for research touching on marital dynamics and sex lives. This integrates critical ethnography and interactive interview processes in terms of collaborative knowledge construction. These critical ethnographic and feminist methodologies further demand that this same degree of candour in academic communications, trust and interpersonal integrity should determine the matrix that produces the research and the researcher’s relationship with the Greater Phoenix Jewish community.

Transing Back the Texts, Queering Jewish Prayer

Transing Back the Texts, Queering Jewish Prayer Zohar Weiman-Kelman (bio) Keyword Jewish ritual, queer spirituality, transfeminism I want to take up Max Strassfeld's call for transfeminist religion, to explore multiple avenues of transing religious practice. What happens when we read existing prayer and ritual from a trans perspective? For the purposes of this transing, I want to look beyond the "corrected" versions of certain prayers that are part of my Jewish religious practice to return to the versions that have been deemed politically objectionable (for good reasons!). Transing them, however, they gain new meaning, and tell new stories about the Jewish past and present alike. [End Page 80] Who Hath Not Made Me a Woman Growing up in the family of a reform rabbi in Jerusalem (part of a long line of rabbis, first in Poland and then in North America), I was spared the daily benediction "Blessed are you, O Lord—who has not made me a woman." This benediction is traditionally part of the morning prayer, along with a list of blessings for the very corporeal miracles of waking up, having sleep removed from our eyes, strength restored to the weary, as well as blessing for not being made a non-Jew, a slave, or a woman. Echoing Joy Ladin's call to recognize the divine in each of us, as Strassfeld takes up in his piece, both men and women in our liberal community would say "Blessed are you, O Lord—who created me in God's image." This blessing is recited exactly the same by people of all genders and expresses gratitude for what we are rather than are not. It should be noted that in Hebrew even this version has a gendered aspect, for God is referred to with masculine pronouns. The Hebrew language makes such gendered distinctions sadly inevitable. And yet this masculine divine image is still bestowed upon all. Even though we recited this different version, I was acutely aware that most people were either being grateful for not being made female or reciting the women's version, which expresses gratitude for being made according to God's will. "Blessed are you, O Lord—who made me as he willed" implies trust in God's choice to deny women the gift of being made men. I remember taking particular offense to the fact that there could not simply be reciprocal gratitude for not being made male, or a rhetorical reversal where everyone was grateful for what they had been made. How does reading transly change the potential meaning of this blessing? Although this might sound like a uniquely contemporary question, answers can be found in much earlier periods, even medieval times. The website Trans Torah brings forth a beautiful fourteenth-century poem by Qalonymos ben Qalonymos (born in Arles, 1286), wherein a male speaker expresses desire to become female. Resigned to his fate, the speaker says: And since long ago I learned from traditionthat both good and bad deserve benediction,in the faintest of whispers I'll mutter each morning;Blessed art Thou, O Lord—who has not made me a woman.1 Reading this poem as part of the Trans Torah project, we see the pain that the traditional blessing could hold for someone who expresses a desire precisely [End Page 81] opposite to that gratitude the blessing means to express. This may then be read as a trans reading of the blessing, but it does not yet offer a transfeminist perspective, nor a reparative reading. Or perhaps this is my personal sense as reader based on how the poet constructs his notion of what it would mean to be a woman: If that alone might be done,how wondrous then would be my fortune!Spared the arduous labor of men,I'd settle down and raise my children. These earlier lines from the poem expose what the speaker associates with femininity, and to my mind, raise the suspicion that this might be more of a rhetorical exaltation of femininity than a transgressive expression of desire (in the mode of "women have it so much easier! I wish I could just stay home too!"). This is not the place...

РЕАКЦИЯ ЛИБЕРАЛЬНЫХ КРУГОВ АНГЛИИ НА ОБРАЗОВАНИЕ АВСТРО-ВЕНГРИИ В ОСВЕЩЕНИИ ГАЗЕТЫ “THE MORNING POST” (1867 Г.)

The reaction of the liberal circles of England to the formation of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867 is considered. The material, on which the study is based, was the Bri- tish newspaper “The Morning Post”, which expressed the interests of the middle class of the bourgeoisie and was the so-called “megaphone” of the Liberal party of Great Britain. Analysis of the newspaper material showed that in the British newspaper the most often raised and considered Austria-Hungary issues are the following: 1) the personality of Emperor Franz Joseph I; 2) the reorganization of the political system of Austria-Hungary on the basis of liberal laws; 3) the adoption of the Constitution of 1867 and the subsequent domestic changes. The study of the journalistic material led to the conclusion that the British liberals met very positively the formation of Austria-Hungary, because in its original form the reforms carried out by the Austrian government were a vivid example of the liberal ideology defended by the liberal community of Great Britain. Nevertheless, the emotionally expressive tone of newspaper articles shows that British liberals, having accepted the changes taking place in Austria-Hungary positively, were not always able to give an objective assessment of what was happening, so the newspaper often does not talk about the real problems of Austrian society.

High‐Five Fridays: (Mis)trust‐Building in One White Liberal Community

The shocking election of President Donald Trump following a campaign characterized by hateful and divisive rhetoric has left many people fearful. In this essay the authors recount their story about the difficulties they encountered trying to disrupt the normalization of white experience through a local community policing initiative in their liberal Northeastern community. They describe how discourses shaped and controlled conversations about race privileging the police over the policed and white over the other.

The role of religion in the Dutch Scout Movement (1911-1973)

This article investigates the role of religion in the organisational history of the Scout Movement in the Netherlands, from 1911 until 1973. When Scouting was first introduced in the Netherlands, it had to be adapted to a ‘pillarising’ society. Members of the liberal community welcomed the Scout Movement in the Netherlands as a means to instil a sense of patriotism and national belonging in the Dutch youth, but faced a protracted struggle over the inclusion of a mandatory reference to God in the Scout Promise. Catholic and Protestant religious communities formed their own and separate Scout associations. Scouting functioned as a de facto ‘light community’, bridging denominational gaps and uniting all Dutch Scouts on the basis of a shared method. However, the unitary national organisation, Scouting Nederland, was only founded in 1973, after Catholics and Protestants themselves redefined the role of religion in society and in their youth organisations.

Linking liberation Theology and community development: An engagement of the United Church of Christ in Zimbabwe

The world over, there is a religious dimension to development and reconstruction in communities. The study is guided by the following questions: Can doing theology exert an influence on developmental packages or being involved in development affect our theology? Must theology and development be done separately or is there a single process that we can call 'doing theology and development’? The study attempts to answer these critical questions by examining the experiences of the United Church of Christ in Zimbabwe (hereafter, UCCZ) among the Ndau people located in southeastern Zimbabwe The UCCZ understood its mission through a number of community projects meant to uplift the quality of life of the indigenous Nadu people. The study argues that community development that is people-centered and geostatic in ethos stands to function towards the regeneration of humanity. Accordingly, the churches, as the voice of the voiceless in society, should strive be informed by the prophetic theologies of liberation and reconstruction when engaged in sustainable developmental packages for communities. The study will utilize the poly-methodic approach that blends the phenomenological, historical and theological methods to configure how the faith-based development can transform communities in the Zimbabwean context. The study is convinced that the churches can do better to serve the grassroots people if they work together with the government under the auspices of the ecumenical movement to re-situate the values of justice, accountability, stability and integral development in communities. These ideals carry universal acclamation for liberation theology today. Key Words: Community, Development, Liberation Theology, Ndau People, UCCZ

Public Equality, Public Reason and Liberal Community

In his The Constitution of Equality: Democratic Authority and its Limits Christiano defends an idea that democracy has authority because it realizes p

Ritual Reconstructed Project, 2014–2015

Ritual Reconstructed Project, 2014–2015 Searle Kochberg (bio) End of Project Event, JW3 (Jewish Community Centre, London, UK), November 24, 2015. Funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. In The Savage Mind1 Claude Lévi-Strauss explains how mythological thought and rites are continuously broken down and rebuilt again through new constructions of already existing sets of events, and how rituals serve to bring unity to previously separate groups. This makes ritual particularly fertile ground for bricolage—Lévi-Strauss’s term for tinkering: the (re)working of found materials to piece together new structures, identities, and rituals. On November 24, 2015, at London’s JW3—the Jewish Community Centre—a yearlong Jewish Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, and Intersex (LGBTQI) research project culminated in a bricolage “happening” of ritual objects, photographs, storytelling, rabbinical dialogues on “queering religion,” and an evening screening of the project’s five LGBTQI Jewish ritual films—all part of the Ritual Reconstructed/Connected Communities project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. In its efforts Ritual Reconstructed has in no small way been facilitated by Liberal Judaism, which in the UK has led the way on LGBTQI inclusivity by being responsive to social need and by being “practical in so many ways,” to quote Rabbi Janet Darley.2 As a filmmaker, I have had the great pleasure in the last four years of working with the LGBTQI Jewish community on three big projects: my film-based PhD, [End Page 186] My Jewish London; the Rainbow Jews project (funded by the UK National Lottery Heritage Fund); and now the Ritual Reconstructed project. What has struck me from the beginning is the way this community has—since the 1970s—indeed “tinkered” to create its own symbols and ritual, all to bring a sense of togetherness and to “pump up individuals with emotional energy.”3 The philosophy behind the LGBTQI ritual activities of the Ritual Reconstructed project is essentially Reconstructionist, based on the ideas of Mordecai Kaplan.4 It is an approach to Jewish custom and belief that aims toward communal decision-making. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. The logotype for the RR project. Seder means “order.” Here, a “foreign” LGBT orange challenges the traditional order on the Passover Seder plate. © Wyman Babbage. One of the films screened at JW3 was Pride Seder,5 a record of the 2015 eve-of-London Pride Seder at South London Liberal Synagogue. An orange takes center stage at this Pride ritual, along with other “foreign” queer objects to be tinkered with at this LGBTQI bricolage event: a drag queen’s high-heel shoe, a brick, foreign “fruits,” rainbow-colored ribbons. The orange on the seder plate [End Page 187] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. The LGBT Pride Seder plate at South London Liberal Synagogue is full of references to Stonewall 1969—the Trans high heels, the brick, the rainbow colors—with the adjacent orange referencing an LGBT Passover Seder plate. © Mary Humphrey. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 3. Congregation and crew filming the Pride Seder at South London Liberal Synagogue, June 2015. © Mary Humphrey. [End Page 188] is a key ritual motif for many LGBTQI Jews. Indeed, the Ritual Reconstructed logotype incorporates this image. Where does the orange motif come from? As Rabbi Janet Burden has commented on www.ritualreconstructed.com, “Some years ago, a group of students at Oberlin College wished to make a statement about Jewish inclusiveness. . . . Either they, or a Jewish feminist called Susannah Heschel, had the idea of using an orange to symbolize inclusivity: It was made up of many segments, but it formed a whole . . . [that shows] that no one should be excluded from the life of our Jewish community.”6 Jean Rouch’s ethnographic films foreground the creative partnerships of the filmmaker, the “participant observer,” and the community being represented. The films we made together for Ritual Reconstructed attempted to live up to Rouch’s ideal of a creative interaction and synthesis. Ritual events were organized from within the LGBTQI Jewish Liberal community. I, in turn, organized camerawork and editing with my crew at the University of Portsmouth...

Southwestern Archaeology Beyond Archaeology: Past, Present, and Future

This article is an argument for and about the benefits of Southwestern archaeology beyond archaeology. Beyond archaeology are the consumers of Southwestern archaeological research: the scientific community, the general public, the legal system, the arts and liberal arts, descendant communities, and policy-makers. We identify some key historical contributions to these consumers and opportunities for continuing our engagement. This history provides numerous insights about the value, uses, and misuses of our work. Toward our goal of informing and energizing progress toward increasing benefits to consumers, we identify global-scale research domains (climate change, food security, migration, etc.) where Southwestern archaeologists are uniquely prepared to extend the benefits of Southwestern archaeology beyond archaeology. Extending these benefits is both an opportunity and an emerging responsibility.

Creating inclusive knowledges: exploring the transformative potential of arts and cultural practice

Arts and cultural practice are gaining attention in numerous disciplines and sectors as a vehicle for community building, and to promote wellbeing and social change. In this article we overview the links between community and liberation psychologies, community arts, and public pedagogy. We put forward the notion of community pedagogies to capture where these areas intersect. The different contributions that make up this special issue are examples of the similarities and divergences in the mobilisation of arts and cultural practices across different countries and in relation to different issues. Community pedagogies seek to challenge oppression, marginalisation and social exclusion and it draws from diverse critical epistemological and methodological tools, is participatory, and guided by relational ethics.

In the Eye of the Beholder: A Sociology of Knowledge Perspective on Norm Transfer

The article introduces the concept of ‘strategic blueprinting’ as a distinct practice of norm transfer, thereby turning the ‘normative-power approach’ on its head. Rather than transferring norms from the inside of liberal communities out, outsiders choose to copy parts of the acquis communautaire. European integration is thus perceived through the eye of the beholder. To elaborate on this strategy, the article compares it with other types of norm transfer such as transplantation and diffusion. The intention is to establish parameters for further research on norm transfer along the four principled dimensions of the new sociology of knowledge: (1) identify and define the practice (internal/external division); (2) situate the practice within the broader field of integration theories and the parallel development of integration policy and politics (symmetry principle); (3) reconstruct the practice (situatedness principle); and (4) establish its potential with regard to governance and constitutionalism in the global realm (contextualism).

Multiculturalism, multilingualism, and the birth of psychoanalysis, I: Crosscurrents in fin-de-siècle Central Europe

The paper explores the wider sociocultural background of the origins of psychoanalysis. Born within the liberal Jewish community of Central Europe and built by marginal people who thrived on otherness, psychoanalysis may have originated as a creative transformation of conflicts between orthodoxy and assimilation, and between the Hebrew and Classical Greek traditions. Similarities between Jewish scholarly thought and psychoanalysis are further elaborated on, especially the aspect of mobile/dynamic “becoming” compared with static “being”: both psychoanalyst and Jewish scholar travel through human experience from place to place. This enduring movement, designed for physical and psychological survival, adaptation, and sublimation, roots and anchors them both.

A Critical Examination of the Political Considerations Regarding the Admission and Reception of China Mainlanders: The Case of Hong Kong and Taiwan

AbstractIn the light of the apparent differences in political inclinations between China Mainland immigrants (or Mainlanders) and the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan, those who want to defend a restrictive policy on the admission and reception of Mainlanders by Hong Kong and Taiwan may appeal to two impartial political considerations: (1) the communitarian defence of preserving the distinctive liberal democratic culture of one's community; and (2) the need for democratic consolidation. However, various survey results suggest that the differences in political outlook between Mainlanders and other Chinese in Hong Kong and Taiwan, though significant, were not substantial enough to warrant a general rejection of China Mainland immigrants out of defence of a liberal democratic community. And the concern over democratic consolidation is not necessarily in favour of a policy rejecting Mainlanders because a more inclusive democracy which allows the participation and potential contribution of China Mainland immigra...

<em>Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire</em>, by C. A. Bayly

Reviewed by: Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire by C. A. Bayly Regenia Gagnier (bio) Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire, by C. A. Bayly; pp. x + 383. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. £52.00, £19.99 paper, $88.00, $30.99 paper. Work that illuminates the circulation of actants (human and nonhuman agents, objects, and things) and memes (ideas that combine or transform in transit) is increasingly desirable in a globalised environment, and C. A. Bayly’s Recovering Liberties is a fine study of the circulation and transformation of liberal agents, ideas, and institutions in India from the 1820s. This review will focus on the Victorian period and its immediate aftermath, though the book concludes with the lasting effects of liberalism up to 2011, with Manmohan Singh’s government in the world’s largest democracy. Bayly’s title, Professor of Imperial and Naval History at Cambridge University, shows a common transformation in the intercultural transvaluation of values, as historian of empire becomes one of Indian culture and society. The book concentrates on maritime and trading centres—traditionally the most liberal communities due to continuous contact with other cultures—Bengal, Bombay, [End Page 286] and northwestern India, rather than Madras and the south, though chapters often conclude with comparative reference to developments in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and the Sino-Malay region. Bayly’s thesis is that Indian literati—from Rammohan Roy in the 1820s, Romesh Chunder Dutt in the 1870s, Dadabhai Naoroji in the 1880s, Gopal Krishna Gokhale in the 1900s, to Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar from the 1920s—participated in transregional or global spheres of liberal discourse. After Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Iberia, these global liberals sympathized with American and Irish struggles against Britain, Chartists, and Giuseppe Mazzini’s republican radicalism; and with others who had experienced slavery and racial prejudice. Transnationally, this amounted to a small, emergent global elite of liberals reading, citing, and engaging with each other in the early days of nation-states. Even when they failed to elicit responses from their putative interlocutors in Europe, the Indian liberals took the occasion to employ their discourses for their own audiences at home. The difference between the European and Indian liberals was that the Indians were colonized, that is, their liberalisms developed under conditions of exploitation and humiliation, and that they had their own traditions of Vedantic continuity, that is, revelation stressing self-realisation, as a nation as well as individuals. The Indian liberals deployed arguments from Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, Auguste Comte, and John Ruskin, and developed a sophisticated mathematical rhetoric of statistics to undermine the statistics of the colonizers. J. S. Mill was much admired aside from his views on race, deism, and scepticism, and they used him against James Fitzjames Stephen’s colonial theory of benign coercion. Mill’s liberalism, Bayly contends, functioned more as a structure of feeling than an air-tight logical system, and he demonstrates repeatedly that the philosophical eclecticism of these Indian liberal admirers of Mill was not a theoretical weakness but an engagement with a totality of human thought. Theosophy was attractive as a social evolutionism, liberal communitarianism, and Vedantic Hinduism. Theories of amalgamation of Hindu and Muslim were compared to the dynamism of Anglo-Saxons. Darwinism was invoked as Spirit’s evolution in history. Indigenous systems of thought in both Hindu and Islam, more worldly religions, avoided the deep conflicts between science and religion that divided Europe. Bayly does not confine his study to discourse. Under the constraints of colonization and then under indigenous strands of communitarianism, Indian liberals developed practices and institutions to deal with religious, caste, and racial diversity undreamed of in Mill’s philosophy. Multicultural India revealed relations of individual rights to group beliefs that problematized liberalism to its core. Indigenous law courts, juries, legal systems, and a free press developed against both domination by the British and internal factions. Bayly discusses at length the juries based in ancient systems of the panchayat (literally “five men,” or local representative bodies), the statistical liberalism that developed as a scientific rhetoric to undermine the science of the Raj, Young...