In Search of the Liberal Moment

This book explores a series of challenging new perspectives on the origins, development, and legacy of France's 'liberal moment' during the second half of the twentieth century. It surveys a significant shift in interest regarding socio-political philosophy and culture, with the 1970s emergence of a blossoming French curiosity about liberalism and liberal thought. While liberalism had played an important role in French political debate prior to this period, liberal voices were often disregarded. It was not until this newfound fascination with liberalism by French intellectuals-spanning from the second left to the new right-that a French liberal revival truly occurred. In Search of the Liberal Moment addresses this revival, its resultant resuscitation of nineteenth-century authors like Tocqueville and Constant, its relationship with the contemporary rise of neoliberalism in Britain and the US, and how its adherents used liberalism to rethink the past, present, and future of modern democracy.

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.

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 Châton
2. 'Plettenburg not Paris: Julian Freund, the New Right and France's Liberal Moment'; Daniel Steinmatz-Jenkins
3. 'Rethinking the French Liberal Moment: Some Thoughts on the Heterogeneous Origins of Lefort and Gauchet's Social Philosophy'; Noah Rosenblum
4. 'On the Supposed Illiberalism of Republican Political Culture in France'; Jean-Fabien Spitz
5. '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 Christofferson
6. 'Capitalism and its Critics: Anti-liberalism in Contemporary French Politics'; Emile Chabal
7. 'Foucault and the French Liberal Revival'; Michael Behrent
8. 'The French Reception of American Neoliberalism in the late 1970s'; Serge Audier
Epilogue. 'Neoliberalism and the Crisis of Democratic Theory'; Stephen W. Sawyer