About the Book
Table of Contents:
TODAY. Reveals the six lies behind the rise of nationalism in the Republican Party in the USA, the Conservative Party in Great Britain, the Bharatiya Janata Party in India, Likud in Israel, the Alliance for Brazil in Brazil, PDP–Laban in the Philippines, Fidesz in Hungary and the Lega in Italy
1. BIRTH. The origin of independent thought in the mind of philosopher René Descartes, who realised Cogito, ergo sum: 'I think therefore I am'. Mentions Meditations on First Philosophy and Discourse on the Method, and Nicolaus Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres.
2. AWAKENING. In the English Civil War period, radicals started to outline three political thoughts that challenged the established order. They were freedom of religious conscience, the notion of the individual, and the notion of doubt. These three ideas would become central to liberalism
3. THE THREE REVOLUTIONS. Liberalism was moulded in the furnace of three revolutions in the 18th century: The Glorious Revolution in England, the American Revolution and the French Revolution
THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
4. CONSTANT. The womanising dissolute 18th Century Swiss philosopher Benjamin Constant established the political rights of the individual and warned of the tyranny of an over-mighty government in Napoleonic France
5. HARRIET AND JOHN. Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill had a deep love affair and laid the groundwork for the development of modern liberalism, including championing a minority cause in 19th Century Victorian England: the right of women to vote. They wrote The Enfranchisement of Women and On Liberty
6. DEATH. The Dreyfuss Affair in France, the extermination of peasants in Ukraine's Holodomor, and the genocide against Jews in Nazi Germany showed what happened when nationalism when tyrants could channel the 'will of the people' over the rights of the individual protected by liberalism
7. NEW WORLD ORDER. After the catastrophe of the Second World War, liberal democracies in the West built a new post-war, rights-based liberal world order designed to guarantee peace and individual rights. Economically John Maynard Keynes triumphed over Friedrich Hayek
8. BELONGING. One flaw in liberalism was the lack of recognition of the identity felt by individuals, whether nationality or religion. The English writer George Orwell and philosopher Isaiah Berlin averred the importance of this sense of belonging in their writings and ultimately in liberalism
9. CRASH. The post-war liberal world order crashed with oil crisis stagflation in the 1970s when Hayek's small state philosophy took root in US governments, leading to bank deregulation on Wall Street (and likewise in the UK under Margaret Thatcher) - leading eventually to 2008 global financial crash
10. IDENTITY WAR. Liberalism had largely been devised by white men, and women and ethnic groups carved out a separate identity that put the group ahead of the individual. 'This was no longer the politics of how to change the world. It was the politics of who you were.'
11. ANTI-TRUTH. Just as liberalism faced multiple threats from the resurgence of nationalism, the rise of identity politics and the financial crash, people’s ability to use reason diminished with the rise of social media. Now everyone was the arbiter of their own truth. Facts became opinions.
12. THE NEW NATIONALISM. 1. Hungary, where Victor Urban used fear of foreigners to dismantle the free media and democratic institutions of Hungary. 2. The rise of Donald Trump who degraded the idea of independent facts. 3 Brexit Britain where nationalist propaganda trumped a nation's interests
13. THE OTHER. How nationalists in Italy, Britain, the US and elsewhere have seized on a supposed threat to their countries from other people to whip up dissent and to crack down on immigration and the rights of individuals, harming democracy and liberal values
TOMORROW. The big problem with liberalism has been complacency that it would eventually triumph around the world. The answer is for liberals to fight for their democratic values. Joe Biden's election as US President offers hope for a kinder, better future
SORRY & THANK YOU. Acknowledgements and apologies. Mentions Ronald Dworkin, TH Green, François Guizot, Leonard Hobhouse, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Immanuel Kant, Robert Nozick, Martha Nussbaum, Karl Popper, John Rawls, Friedrich Schiller and Alexis de Tocqueville.
FURTHER READING. An extensive list of books that hold the keys to liberalism, including Liberalism: The Life of an Idea by Edmund Fawcett and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Also recommended is Toby Buckle’s Political Philosophy podcast. 'You owe it to yourself to read On Liberty'
INDEX. The As start: Act of Union, Acxiom, Adam, adaptive preference, advertising, African Americans, aggregate demand, agitators, Agreement of the People, Akhmatova, Aktion T-4 programme, algorithms, alternative facts...
About the Author :
About the Author
Ian Dunt is a columnist with the I newspaper and presents the Origin Story and Oh God, What Now? podcasts.
His first book, Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now? (Canbury Press, 2017) on Britain's departure from the European Union was a bestseller. In How Westminster Works (And Why It Doesn't) he looked at the UK politics.
In How To Be A Liberal (Canbury, 2020) he tells the story of our personal freedom. Drawing on history, politics and economics, he argues for a radical, egalitarian liberalism that nurtures both individuals and us all.
Review :
‘A tour de force; a mighty trumpet blast for the forces of liberalism and enlightenment in the face of a global tide of ignorance and populism.’
– THE SECRET BARRISTER
‘This is a history of ideas as it should be written – brilliant, vivid story-telling about the people who shaped liberalism, the challenges it has faced over the centuries, its commitment to the truth and why it’s now more important than ever to defend it.’
– CAROLINE LUCAS MP
‘Dunt’s gift for making complicated issues comprehensible is second to none. Courageous.’
– JAMES O’BRIEN, LBC
‘How To Be A Liberal is required reading for today’s political debates.’
– ANNE APPLEBAUM, TWILIGHT OF DEMOCRACY
‘Clear-eyed and hard-headed. His defence of liberalism is political writing at its most urgent and engaging.’
– NICK COHEN, OBSERVER COLUMNIST
‘A phenomenal history from a truly big mind.’
– DAVID SCHNEIDER, THE DEATH OF STALIN
'When in the course of human events it falls on us to resist, this makes a welcome guidebook.'
– KIRKUS
'He describes liberalism as “an enormous, boisterous, confounding bloody thing,” and writes passionately in its favour, as a counterweight to ignorance and populism. This book is required reading for anyone interested in politics and philosophy.'
– PROSPECT
'All of Ian Dunt’s How to be a Liberal is essential reading, but the chapter on Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill is blistering, eye-opening stuff.'
– Shakespeare & Company bookstore, https://twitter.com/Shakespeare_Co/status/1332266783303151617
