Liberalism : the life of an idea / Edmund Fawcett.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Introduction: It's about more than liberty
The confidence of youth (1830-1880). Historical setting in the 1830s: thrown into a world of ceaseless change ; Guiding thoughts from founding thinkers: conflict, resistance, progress, and respect ; Liberalism in practice: four exemplary politicians ; The nineteenth-century legacy: liberalism without caricature
Liberalism in maturity and the struggle with democracy (1880-1945). Historical setting in the 1880s: the world liberals were making ; The compromises that gave us liberal democracy ; The economic powers of the modern state and modern market ; Damaged ideals and broken dreams ; Thinking about liberalism in the 1930s-1940s
Second chance and success (1945-1989). Historical setting after 1945: liberal democracy's new start ; New foundations: rights, a Democratic rule of law, and welfare ; Liberal thinking after 1945 ; The breadth of liberal politics in the 1950s-1980s
After 1989. Coda: Liberal dreams in the twenty-first century

"Liberalism dominates today's politics just as it decisively shaped the past two hundred years of American and European history. Yet there is striking disagreement about what liberalism really means and how it arose. In this engrossing history of liberalism--the first in English for many decades--veteran political observer Edmund Fawcett traces the ideals, successes, and failures of this central political tradition through the lives and ideas of a rich cast of European and American thinkers and politicians, from the early nineteenth century to today. Using a broad idea of liberalism, the book discusses celebrated thinkers from Constant and Mill to Berlin, Hayek, and Rawls, as well as more neglected figures. Its twentieth-century politicians include Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Willy Brandt, but also Hoover, Reagan, and Kohl. The story tracks political liberalism from its beginnings in the 1830s to its long, grudging compromise with democracy, through a golden age after 1945 to the present mood of challenge and doubt."--Jacket