Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism
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Description
An active participant in political struggles as well as a theorist of exceptional psychological subtlety, Benjamin Constant helped reshape and revivify Enlightenment liberalism in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Properly situated in their historical context, his writings and speeches are a rich source of insight into the dilemmas of freedom in modern society. Stephen Holmes's book is a splendid historical study of Constant and an original contribution to the current debate about liberalism. According to Holmes, Constant is the political thinker who most incisively challenged the romantic "appeal to antiquity" - the idea that the Greek polis should be the standard by which modern societies are evaluated. Shocked by the Terror, Constant argued that the old res publica conception of politics might easily serve to overlegitimate a bureaucratic agency with police powers. His theories call into question the myth of the irreconcilable conflict between liberalism and democracy even while drawing attention to important distinctions between ancient and modern liberty and between traditional despotism and pseudodemocratic dictatorship.
Publication Date
1984
Recommended Citation
Holmes, Stephen, "Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism" (1984). Faculty Books & Edited Works. 403.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-books-edited-works/403
