Post-liberalism

John Gray has become one our liveliest and most influential political philosophers. This volume is a sequel to his Liberalisms: Essays in Political Philosophy. The earlier book ended on a sceptical note, both in respect of what a post-liberal political philosophy might look like, and with respect to the claims of political philosophy itself. The present work gives post-liberal theory a more definite content. It does so by considering particular thinkers in the history of political thought, by criticizing the conventional wisdom, liberal and socialist, of the Western academic class, and most directly by specifying what remains of value in liberalism. The upshot of this line of thought is that we need not regret the failure of foundationalist liberalism, since we have all we need in the historic inheritance of the institutions of civil society now present in parts of the world, such as the post-Communist states, where they were hitherto weak or suppressed. It is to the practice of liberty that these institutions encompass, rather than to the empty vistas of liberal theory, that we should repair.