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"Liberty-History"
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Libertas and the Practice of Politics in the Late Roman Republic
This is a comprehensive analysis of the idea of libertas and its conflicting uses in the political struggles of the late Roman Republic. By reconstructing Roman political thinking about liberty against the background of Classical and Hellenistic thought, it excavates two distinct intellectual traditions on the means allowing for the preservation and the loss of libertas. Considering the interplay of these traditions in the political debates of the first century BC, Dr Arena offers a significant reinterpretation of the political struggles of the time as well as a radical reappraisal of the role played by the idea of liberty in the practice of politics. She argues that, as a result of its uses in rhetorical debates, libertas underwent a form of conceptual change at the end of the Republic and came to legitimise a new course of politics, which led progressively to the transformation of the whole political system.
eBook
Ancient and modern democracy : two concepts of liberty?
\"Ancient and Modern Democracy is a comprehensive account of Athenian democracy as a subject of criticism, admiration and scholarly debate for 2,500 years, covering the features of Athenian democracy, its importance for the English, American and French revolutions and for the debates on democracy and political liberty from the nineteenth century to the present. Discussions were always in the context of contemporary constitutional problems. Time and again they made a connection with a long-established tradition, involving both dialogue with ancient sources and with earlier phases of the reception of Antiquity. They refer either to a common cultural legacy or to specific national traditions; they often involve a mixture of political and scholarly arguments. This book elucidates the complexity of considering and constructing systems of popular self-rule\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Libertas and res publica in the Roman Republic : ideas of freedom and Roman politics
Libertas and Res Publica examines two key concepts of Western political thinking: freedom and republic. Contributors address important new questions on the principles of, and essential connection between res publica and libertas in Roman thought and Republican history.
eBook
What was liberalism? : the past, present and promise of a noble idea
\"In the vertiginous era of Trump and Marine le Pen, liberalism's status is challenged. There is a widespread fear that liberal values, long taken for granted, are now in danger -- not only from authoritarian countries abroad, but also from a loss of faith inside the liberal world. What happened? Why did liberalism lose the majority support it once enjoyed? And what is so precious about liberalism in the first place? In What Was Liberalism?, award-winning journalist and author James Traub tackles these questions by examining the history of liberalism, from the American and French revolutions through the writings of John Stuart Mill and early-twentieth-century American progressives to liberalism's midcentury triumph in the West, its shaky present, and its uncertain future. Liberalism, Traub shows, began with a commitment to individual liberty, but it didn't end there. Over time, liberals sought to balance freedom of speech and action with goods like justice and equality, opposing both economic exploitation and totalitarianism. Partly as a result, the relationship between liberalism and democracy also evolved. Many nineteenth-century liberals were deeply worried about the democracy's illiberal effects, but by the middle of the twentieth century, liberalism had become the consensus faith of a wide swath of Americans and Europeans, both left and right. Yet even as the liberal West emerged victorious from the Cold War, liberalism's broad majoritarian foundations were crumbling, falling prey to accelerating economic inequality and the vexing challenges of race and immigration. Traub explores how illiberalism burned out of sight like an underground fire, and how it exploded into view in Europe and the United States in recent decades\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
A brief history of liberty
Through a fusion of philosophical, social scientific, and historical methods, A Brief History of Liberty provides a comprehensive, philosophically-informed portrait of the elusive nature of one of our most cherished ideals. Offers a succinct yet thorough survey of personal freedom Explores the true meaning of liberty, drawing philosophical lessons about liberty from history Considers the writings of key historical figures from Socrates and Erasmus to Hobbes, Locke, Marx, and Adam Smith Combines philosophical rigor with social scientific analysis Argues that liberty refers to a range of related but specific ideas rather than limiting the concept to one definition
eBook
Freedom's Ring
Freedom's Ring begins with the question of how the American ideal of freedom, which so effectively defends a conservative agenda today, from globally exploitative free trade to anti-French \"freedom fries\" during the War in Iraq, once bolstered the progressive causes of Freedom Summer, the Free Speech Movement, and more militant Black Power and Women's Liberation movements with equal efficacy. Focused as it is on the faring of freedom throughout the liberation era, this book also explores attempts made by rights movements to achieve the often competitive or cross-canceling American ideal of equality-economic, professional, and otherwise. Although many struggled and died for it in the civil rights era, freedoms such as the vote, integrated bus rides, and sex without consequences via the Pill, are ultimately free-costing officialdom little if anything to fully implement-while equality with respect to jobs, salaries, education, housing, and health care, will forever be the much more expensive nut to crack. Freedom's Ring regards the politics of freedom, and politics in general, as a low-cost substitute for and engrossing distraction from substantive economic problem-solving from the liberation era to the present day.
eBook
Moral Capital
Revisiting the origins of the British antislavery movement of the
late eighteenth century, Christopher Leslie Brown challenges
prevailing scholarly arguments that locate the roots of
abolitionism in economic determinism or bourgeois humanitarianism.
Brown instead connects the shift from sentiment to action to
changing views of empire and nation in Britain at the time,
particularly the anxieties and dislocations spurred by the American
Revolution.
The debate over the political rights of the North American
colonies pushed slavery to the fore, Brown argues, giving
antislavery organizing the moral legitimacy in Britain it had never
had before. The first emancipation schemes were dependent on
efforts to strengthen the role of the imperial state in an era of
weakening overseas authority. By looking at the initial public
contest over slavery, Brown connects disparate strands of the
British Atlantic world and brings into focus shifting developments
in British identity, attitudes toward Africa, definitions of
imperial mission, the rise of Anglican evangelicalism, and Quaker
activism.
Demonstrating how challenges to the slave system could serve as a
mark of virtue rather than evidence of eccentricity, Brown shows
that the abolitionist movement derived its power from a profound
yearning for moral worth in the aftermath of defeat and American
independence. Thus abolitionism proved to be a cause for the
abolitionists themselves as much as for enslaved Africans.
eBook