Liberalism

Michael Freeden is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Nottingham and Emeritus Professor of Politics, University of Oxford. His books include The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford, 1978); Liberalism Divided: A Study in British Political Thought 1914-1939 (Oxford, 1986); Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach (Oxford, 1996); Ideology: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2003); Liberal Languages: Ideological Imaginations and 20th Century Progressive Thought (Princeton, 2005); The Political Theory of Political Thinking (Oxford, 2013), and The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies (co-edited, Oxford, 2013). He is the founder-editor of the Journal of Political Ideologies. In 2012 he was awarded the Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for Lifetime Contribution to Political Studies by the UK Political Studies Association and the Medal for Science of the Institute of Advanced Studies, Bologna University.

It is hard to imagine a better introduction to liberalism than Freedan's short book and, like all outstanding introductions, it has a lot to offer to those who don't think they really need one.

• 1. A house of many mansions ; 2. The liberal narrative ; 3. Layers of liberalism ; 4. The morphology of liberalism ; 5. The liberal canon ; 6. Philosophical liberalism: Idealizing justice ; 7. Misappropriations, reformulations, disparagements and lapses ; References ; Further reading