In Search of the Liberal Moment

Stephen W. Sawyer is an Associate Professor and Chair of the History Department at the American University of Paris, France. Iain Stewart is a Lecturer in modern European history at University College London, UK, and is currently writing a monograph on Raymond Aron's place in the history of liberal thought in France and internationally.

Jeremy Jennings, Professor of Political Theory, King's College, London I have now had a chance to look at this proposal. Apologies again for the delay. In brief, this is a very well-presented proposal which clearly sets out the aims and ambitions of the proposed volume. I can confirm that the revival of liberal thought in France in the 1970s and 1980s was as significant as the editors claim and that it has to date been relatively unexplored. The proposed content is both comprehensive and original. The quality of the contributors is uniformly first rate. Both Spitz and Audier have an international reputation and it will be good to have more of their work in English. Christofferson and Behrent are young historians who have already made a significant contribution to the field. Both propose to write on fascinating topics. Behrent's reading of Foucault will be a long overdue corrective to the dominant interpretations of his work. Likewise the essay by Chabal on anti-capitalism in France will explore a very important dimension of French thinking and will help us understand why liberalism faced (and continues to face) such strong opposition. Chaton's essay will rightly focus on the group of writers around Raymond Aron and the journal Commentaire. This is where most of the really serious thinking occured. The contribution on Julien Freund will also be most welcome - he remains remarkably under-read - as will be the contribution about Textures (about which I know virtually nothing). Iain Stewart's doctoral work ideally places him to write the introduction. He is a young but very industrious scholar and I would have no doubt about his ability to see this project through to a successful conclusion. I do not know Stephen Sawyer's work but, having worked for Pierre Rosanvallon, he will have an insider's knowledge of the thinkers and ideas under discussion.I am sure that his essay will be very good. So, if the quality of the contributors is a plus, so too is the fact that they are drawn from France, the UK and the America. It will, if nothing else, enlarge the potential market. If I am honest, I doubt that many French university libraries will buy the volume. They buy few books in any case, and even fewer in English, but there will be French sales. Most of the sales, I guess, will be to American university libraries. I think that the book will be widely reviewed, although most in specialist French history and political thought journals. Palgrave are best placed to assess these commercial matters but I have no hesitation in recommending the volume for publication.

• Introduction. 'New Perspectives on France's 'Liberal Moment'; Stephen W. Sawyer and Iain Stewart, 1. 'Taking Anti-totalitarianism Seriously: the Emergence of the Aronian Circle in the 1970s'; Gwendal Châton2. 'Plettenburg not Paris: Julian Freund, the New Right and France's Liberal Moment'; Daniel Steinmatz-Jenkins3. 'Rethinking the French Liberal Moment: Some Thoughts on the Heterogeneous Origins of Lefort and Gauchet's Social Philosophy'; Noah Rosenblum4. 'On the Supposed Illiberalism of Republican Political Culture in France'; Jean-Fabien Spitz5. 'The Best Help I Could Find to Help Understand our Present': François Furet's Anti-revolutionary Reading of Tocqueville's Democracy in America'; Michael Scott Christofferson6. 'Capitalism and its Critics: Anti-liberalism in Contemporary French Politics'; Emile Chabal7. 'Foucault and the French Liberal Revival'; Michael Behrent8. 'The French Reception of American Neoliberalism in the late 1970s'; Serge AudierEpilogue. 'Neoliberalism and the Crisis of Democratic Theory'; Stephen W. Sawyer