Many have observed that support for reactionary politics often arises from a sense of loss. But how do liberals themselves respond to losing power? And can their attempts to navigate loss fuel the very illiberal forces they wish to contain? Alec Dinnin's The Liberalism of Loss tackles these questions by examining how the end of the Spanish Empire affected the ideas of Spain's most famous liberal philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset (1883^–^1955). Through engagement with untranslated writings including unpublished archival material, Dinnin argues that anxieties over imperial loss animated Ortega's liberalism and informed his famous liberal critiques of mass democracy and totalitarianism. But the book also shows that Ortega's attempt to reimagine liberalism in order to escape from the ruins of empire inadvertently left a deep and lasting mark on the founding ideologues of Spanish fascism. Situating Ortega's political thought within the shadow of imperial loss and tracing its influence on the reactionary movements of his time, The Liberalism of Loss reveals how the line between liberal and fascist ideology can blur when both are committed to reviving political hierarchy. As such, the book not only illuminates the potential depths of liberalism's dependency upon empire, but also highlights the enduring dangers of responding to crises of imperial loss without confronting the legitimacy of empire itself.
