“In the United States at this time,” Lionel Trilling asserted in 1950, “liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition.” A few years later, in his highly influential book ...

The idea of liberalism, at bottom, is about freedom and toleration. It is less a positive creed than a belief that private choices and opinions ought to be respected. The liberal does not find ...

6Can Liberalism Stop Being So Darn ... Liberal? 7Liberalism Has the Ideas–but Does It Have the Will to Impose Them? View All The editors ask if today’s liberalism is equipped to win “this battle,” too ...

Governments can’t be indifferent to the moral and spiritual health of the governed. “Liberalism” is a word with many meanings, some compatible with Christianity, some arguably demanded by it. In its ...

Collateral Damage for the Coal Industry? What Would George Washington Do? Religious Freedom Is Syria’s First Test Audio By Carbonatix The editor of First Things defends the classical-liberal tradition ...

This week we move from a consideration of the main sources of classical liberalism to several more contemporary voices. While many authors might have been considered, I will focus on three main ...

From the always thoughtful and readable Jonathan Rauch, in Persuasion; some excerpts, though the whole thing is much worth reading: Never in my lifetime have critiques of Locke, Smith, Mill, the ...

Notre Dame professor Patrick Deneen has written a book vitally important for understanding the present crisis in Western politics. If this work had appeared two or three years ago, it still would have ...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio travelled to Munich this month and articulated a possible foundation for a deeper ...

Histories of the idea of liberalism usually begin in the seventeenth century with the philosopher taken to be its patron saint, John Locke. In the aftermath of the wars of religion, the story goes, ...

Here’s today’s quiz: What is American liberalism, and how is it doing? In response to the first half of the question, and bowing to the contemporary wisdom that anything can be reduced to the length ...

Let me start with a concession: Things are not going great right now in America. I feel this needs little elaboration, so I will just assert it. I do so to grant that this is not the ideal time for a ...