Whereas most writing on the Communist Revolution in China has concentrated on the influence of intellectual leaders, this book examines the role of peasants in the upheaval, viewing them not as a malleable mass but as a dynamic social force interacting with the radical intelligentsia. Focusing on the Xinjiang region, Kamal Sheel traces the historical roots of the early twentieth-century agrarian crisis that led to a large-scale revolution in the late 1920s, one of the most successful peasant movements organized by the Chinese Communists. A fresh analysis emerges of the remarkable Marxist intellectual Fang Zhimin, who used his deeply entrenched rural connections to organize the movement through a creative synthesis of traditional folk concepts with modern Marxist thought. This history begins with the impact of the Taiping Rebellion and proceeds to document the rapid disintegration of the small peasant economy under the pressures of world economics, a "state in crisis," and a qualitatively different landed upper class. It discusses exploitation, protest, and rural uprisings in the context of the "crisis of paternalism," marked by a progressive deterioration in the social relationships in rural areas. Integrating this investigation of rural upheaval with recent social science theories on peasant movements, the study ultimately explores the growth of the Xinjiang revolutionary movement.

Originally published in 1989.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This study, based largely on Chinese journals rarely available to Western scholars, explores the abrupt turnabout of Chinese views of the Soviet Union from condemnations of revisionism" to appreciation for problems common to both countries.

Originally published in 1987.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Marshalling historical materials to make a descriptive argument in social theory, this wide-ranging book compares the liberal revolution in France to the liberal revolutions in England and America and argues that the causes and outcomes of these upheavals were decisive in shaping later patterns of politics. "Conflict is the stuff of politics," writes Anne Sa'adah, and liberal politics, because of its emphasis on the individual and its legitimation of self-interest, complicates the task of creating political community in a particularly interesting way. In England and America, the tension between conflict and community was resolved in a manner consistent with political stability. In France, the tension produced an instability that has surfaced periodically throughout subsequent French history. Why this is so is the subject of a work that treats the making of the modern political world in an unusually systematic way.

In France, England, and America, the relationship of the state to society under the prerevolutionary regime limited revolutionary options. Sa'adah focuses on how this relationship created a politics of exclusion in France, while allowing a politics of transaction in England and America.

Originally published in 1990.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In the super-heated anticommunist politics of the early Cold War period, American liberals turned to the FBI. With the Communist party to the left of them and McCarthyism to the right, liberal leaders saw the Bureau as the only legitimate instrument to define and protect the internal security interests of the state. McCarthyism provided ample proof of the dangers of security by congressional investigation. In response, liberals delegated extensive powers to J. Edgar Hoover--creating a domestic intelligence capacity that circumvented constitutional and legal controls. This balanced account of the link between liberal leaders in the United States and the growth of the FBI will appeal to a broad audience of readers interested in the American political climate. William Keller identifies a tension between liberalism and the security of the state that can never be fully resolved, and analyzes the exact mechanisms through which liberals and liberal government came to tolerate and even venerate an authoritarian state presence in their midst.

The author shows how the liberal offensive against domestic communism succeeded both in weakening McCarthyism and in disabling the Communist party in the United States. What was the cost of these successes? Keller's answer assesses the liberal community's contribution to changes in the FBI between 1950 and 1970: its transformation into an independent, unaccountable political police.

Originally published in 1989.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Western societies are suffering from a multi-faceted political and economic crisis to which traditional ideologies of the Left and Right no longer offer viable solutions.

This book advocates as an alternative 'associative democracy'. Far from being a utopian idea, it offers new forms of economic and social governance as supplements to representative democracy and market economies. Associative democracy addresses the problems of the overload of big government by democratizing and empowering civil society. It transfers social provision to self-governing voluntary associations, whilst retaining public funding and political accountability. It 'publicises' civil society, placing political responsibility and governmental tasks in the hands of citizens. Accountable government becomes possible because service performance and public control are separated. In the economic sphere it advocates regional economic regulation through public-private partnerships, the promotion of self-governing industrial districts, and the democratization of the firm.

In this way, Hirst argues, public regulation can be made less remote, promoting the growth of relationships based on co-operation and trust and, therefore, ensuring those flows of information and commitment on the part of actors necessary to the pursuit of "quality" in market economies.

This book is highly distinctive in the way it combines political theory with social analysis and political advocacy. It forms an outstanding contribution to contemporary political discussion.

Lienesch shows that what emerged from the period of change was an inconsistent combination of political theories. The mixture of classical republicanism and modern liberalism was institutionalized in the American Constitution and has continued--ambivalent, contradictory, and sometimes flatly paradoxical--to characterize American politics ever since.

Originally published in 1990.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In this definitive historical investigation, Italian author and philosopher Domenico Losurdo argues that from the outset liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery. Narrating an intellectual history running from the eighteenth through to the twentieth centuries, Losurdo examines the thought of preeminent liberal writers such as Locke, Burke, Tocqueville, Constant, Bentham, and Sieyes, revealing the inner contradictions of an intellectual position that has exercised a formative influence on today's politics. Among the dominant strains of liberalism, he discerns the counter-currents of more radical positions, lost in the constitution of the modern world order.

For nearly 40 years, Ronald Reagan's vision--small government, lower taxes, and self-reliant individualism--has remained America's dominant political ideology. The Democratic Party has offered no truly convincing competing vision. Instead, American liberalism has fallen under the spell of identity politics. Mark Lilla argues with acerbic wit that liberals, originally driven by a sincere desire to protect the most vulnerable Americans, have now unwittingly invested their energies in social movements rather than winning elections. This abandonment of political priorities has had dire consequences. But, with the Republican Party led by an unpredictable demagogue and in ideological disarray, Lilla believes liberals now have an opportunity to turn from the divisive politics of identity, and offer positive ideas for a shared future. A fiercely-argued, no-nonsense book, The Once and Future Liberal is essential reading for our momentous times.

Sharpening the debate over the values that formed America's founding political philosophy, Barry Alan Shain challenges us to reconsider what early Americans meant when they used such basic political concepts as the public good, liberty, and slavery. We have too readily assumed, he argues, that eighteenth-century Americans understood these and other terms in an individualistic manner. However, by exploring how these core elements of their political thought were employed in Revolutionary-era sermons, public documents, newspaper editorials, and political pamphlets, Shain reveals a very different understanding--one based on a reformed Protestant communalism.

In this context, individual liberty was the freedom to order one's life in accord with the demanding ethical standards found in Scripture and confirmed by reason. This was in keeping with Americans' widespread acceptance of original sin and the related assumption that a well-lived life was only possible in a tightly knit, intrusive community made up of families, congregations, and local government bodies. Shain concludes that Revolutionary-era Americans defended a Protestant communal vision of human flourishing that stands in stark opposition to contemporary liberal individualism. This overlooked component of the American political inheritance, he further suggests, demands examination because it alters the historical ground upon which contemporary political alternatives often seek legitimation, and it facilitates our understanding of much of American history and of the foundational language still used in authoritative political documents.

Since the nineteenth century, Greek financial and economic crises have been an enduring problem, most recently engulfing the European Union and EU member states. The latest crisis, beginning in 2010, has been - and continues to be - a headline news story across the continent. With a radically different approach and methodology, this anthropological study brings new insights to our understanding of the Greek crises by combining historical material from before and after the nineteenth century War of Independence with extensive longitudinal ethnographic research. The ethnography covers two distinct periods - the 1980s and the current crisis years - and compares Mystras and Kefala, two villages in southern Greece, each of which has responded quite differently to economic circumstances. Analysis of this divergence highlights the book's central point that an ideology of aspiration to work in the public sector, pervasive in Greek society since the nineteenth century, has been a major contributor to Greece's problematic economic development. Shedding new light on previously under-researched anthropological and sociological aspects of the Greek economic crisis, this book will be essential reading for economists, anthropologists and historians.

Has contemporary liberalism's devotion to individual liberty come at the expense of our society's obligations to children? Divorce is now easy to obtain, and access to everything from violent movies to sexually explicit material is zealously protected as freedom of speech. But what of the effects on the young, with their special needs and vulnerabilities? "Freedom's Orphans" seeks a way out of this predicament. Poised to ignite fierce debate within and beyond academia, it documents the increasing indifference of liberal theorists and jurists to what were long deemed core elements of children's welfare.

Evaluating large changes in liberal political theory and jurisprudence, particularly American liberalism after the Second World War, David Tubbs argues that the expansion of rights for adults has come at a high and generally unnoticed cost. In championing new "lifestyle" freedoms, liberal theorists and jurists have ignored, forgotten, or discounted the competing interests of children.

To substantiate his arguments, Tubbs reviews important currents of liberal thought, including the ideas of Isaiah Berlin, Ronald Dworkin, and Susan Moller Okin. He also analyzes three key developments in American civil liberties: the emergence of the "right to privacy" in sexual and reproductive matters; the abandonment of the traditional standard for obscenity prosecutions; and the gradual acceptance of the doctrine of "strict separation" between religion and public life.

`An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot . . . it will march on the horizon of the world and it will conquer.' Thomas Paine was the first international revolutionary. His Common Sense (1776) was the most widely read pamphlet of the American Revolution; his Rights of Man (1791-2) was the most famous defence of the French Revolution and sent out a clarion call for revolution throughout the world. He paid the price for his principles: he was outlawed in Britain, narrowly escaped execution in France, and was villified as an atheist and a Jacobin on his return to America. Paine loathed the unnatural inequalities fostered by the hereditary and monarchical systems. He believed that government must be by and for the people and must limit itself to the protection of their natural rights. But he was not a libertarian: from a commitment to natural rights he generated one of the first blueprints for a welfare state, combining a liberal order of civil rights with egalitarian constraints. This collection brings together Paine's most powerful political writings from the American and French revolutions in the first fully annotated edition of these works. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

An insightful and passionately written book explaining why a return to Enlightenment ideals is good for the world "Beginning with the simple but fertile idea that people should not push other people around, Deirdre McCloskey presents an elegant defense of 'true liberalism' as opposed to its well-meaning rivals on the left and the right. Erudite, but marvelously accessible and written in a style that is at once colloquial and astringent."-Stanley Fish The greatest challenges facing humankind, according to Deirdre McCloskey, are poverty and tyranny, both of which hold people back. Arguing for a return to true liberal values, this engaging and accessible book develops, defends, and demonstrates how embracing the ideas first espoused by eighteenth-century philosophers like Locke, Smith, Voltaire, and Wollstonecraft is good for everyone. With her trademark wit and deep understanding, McCloskey shows how the adoption of Enlightenment ideals of liberalism has propelled the freedom and prosperity that define the quality of a full life. In her view, liberalism leads to equality, but equality does not necessarily lead to liberalism. Liberalism is an optimistic philosophy that depends on the power of rhetoric rather than coercion, and on ethics, free speech, and facts in order to thrive.

One of our most brilliant public intellectuals, Paul Berman has spent his career writing on revolutionary movements and their totalitarian aspects. Here he argues that, in the terror war, we are not facing a battle of the West against Islam a clash of civilizations. We are facing, instead, the same battle that tore apart Europe during most of the twentieth century, only in a new version. It is the clash of liberalism and its enemies the battle between freedom and totalitarianism that arose in Europe many years ago and spread to the Muslim world. The author considers the wars against fascism and communism from the past, and draws cautionary lessons. But he also draws from those past experiences a liberal program for the present a program that departs in fundamental respects from the policies of the Bush administration."

After decades of ideological struggle, much of it in the service of an elusive socialist ideal, Latin America has embraced liberalism--democracy and unfettered markets. But liberalism has triumphed more by default than through exuberance. The region's democracies are fragile and lethargic. Despite pronounced social inequality, widespread poverty, and other difficulties, the populace is not engaged in deep discussions about state and society. The end of ideological contests has dampened political conflict, but likewise lessened the sense of urgency for solving trenchant problems. Political fatigue and devotion to acquisition have smothered egalitarianism as even an ideal. There is an uneasy social indifference.

"Latin America at the End of Politics" explores this period of circumscribed political passions through deft portrayals of crucial political, economic, social, and cultural issues: governance, entrepreneurs and markets, urban bias, poverty, the struggle for women's equality, consumerism, crime, environmental degradation, art, and migration of the poor. Discussions of these issues are enriched by the poignant narratives of emblematic individuals, many of whom are disoriented by the ideological void of the era.

Forrest Colburn's highly original analysis draws on his deep scholarly and personal familiarity with Latin America. The collage of issues discussed, set in a provocative framework, offers a compelling interpretation of Latin America in the aftermath of the last century's ideological battles--and a way to begin to talk about the region's future.

This book explores the neglected history of women who were active in Liberal politics, campaigning for women's rights, the vote, and a full role for women in Welsh public life, at the end of the nineteenth century, and before the First World War. The over-arching argument of the book is that Welsh women's Liberal politics was distinctive, in its attempt to integrate an understanding of Liberalism which they shared with their English counterparts, and which included the aim of full equality for women, with a distinctively Welsh political agenda, and constructions of Welsh national identity. These constructions sometimes included a positive view of women in the nation, but in times of political crisis redefined gender on a more reactionary model.

Labour and the Caucus provides a new, innovative pre-history of the Labour party. In the two decades following the Second Reform Act there was a sustained and concerted campaign for working-class parliamentary representation from a range of labour organisations to an extent that was hitherto unseen in British political history. The franchise revolution of 1867 and the controversial introduction of more sophisticated forms of electoral machinery, which became known as the 'caucus', raised serious questions not only for a labour movement seeking to secure political representation but also for a Liberal party that had to respond to the pressures of mass politics. Through a close examination of the interactions between labour and the 'caucus' from the 1868 general election to Keir Hardie's independent labour candidature in 1888, this book provides a comprehensive and multi-layered picture of the troubled relationship between working-class radicals and organised Liberalism. The electoral strategy of labour candidates, the links between urban and rural radicalism, the impact of the National Liberal Federation, the influence of American and Irish politics on the labour movement, the revival of socialism, and the contested identity of a 'Labour party' are all examined from fresh perspectives. In doing so, this book challenges the existing teleological assumptions about the rise of independent labour, and explores the questions that remain about how working-class radicals and Liberals shared and negotiated power, and how this relationship changed over time.

The Liberal Mind attempts to uncover the philosophy of liberalism and lay bare its implications. What is Man? How does he think and feel? What is the place of Reason in human affairs? How should men live? What is politics, and what is it for? Kenneth Minogue offers a brilliant and provocative exploration of liberalism in the Western world today: its roots and its influences, its present state, and its prospects in the new century. While few - especially in America - embrace the description of liberal, Minogue argues, most Americans and most Europeans behave as liberals. At least they are the heirs of what Minogue describes as "the triumph of an enlarged, flexible, and pragmatic version of liberalism." The past two centuries have been characterised, in the West at least, by "the fury of old ideological battles... such as: A planned economy, or free enterprise? Individual thrift, or social services? Free trade, or protection?" These battles have largely been completed -- and, many would say, have been won by the champions of, respectively, free enterprise, individual thrift, and free trade.

Does the concept of nationality apply to the economic elite, or have they shed national identities to form a global capitalist class? In Rooted Globalism, Kevin Funk unpacks dozens of ethnographic interviews he conducted with Latin America's urban-based, Arab-descendant elite class, some of whom also occupy positions of political power in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Based on extensive fieldwork, Funk illuminates how these elites navigate their Arab ancestry, Latin American host cultures, and roles as protagonists of globalization. With the term "rooted globalism," Funk captures the emergence of classed intersectional identities that are simultaneously local, national, transnational, and global. Focusing on an oft-ignored axis of South-South relations (between Latin America and the Arab world), Rooted Globalism provides detailed analysis of the identities, worldviews, and motivations of this group and ultimately reveals that rather than obliterating national identities, global capitalism relies on them.

'I am passionate about my country and angry at the mendacity that has led to the appalling situation in which the UK and our people are heading for relative poverty and insignificance while our politics is offering bitter, unpalatable extremes. There has to be something better. In the absence of something better, we will have to build it.' Tim Farron Writing with warmth, humour and compelling honesty, Tim Farron charts his rise to the leadership of the Liberal Democrats - from his childhood in Preston to his central role during the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition of 2010-15. Farron speaks openly about his role as Party President and the intense experience of leading his party through the 2016 EU referendum and the snap general election of 2017. He also reflects on the scrutiny he received because of his religious beliefs. So, having reached the top of his career, what made him voluntarily relinquish that honour? What does Tim Farron's experience mean for those who hold to a liberal vision? Are there lessons to be learned about the role of religion in public life? And what are the prospects for true liberalism in the UK today?

Has the United States become more pluribus than unum? In terms of the nation's political beliefs, Robert Booth Fowler answers both yes and no. While his study affirms significant diversity among an elite cadre of public intellectuals, it vigorously denies it in a general public that collectively adheres to the same set of liberal core values. Enduring Liberalism pursues two objectives. One, it explores the political thought of public intellectuals and the general public since the 1960s. Two, it assesses contemporary and classic interpretations of American political thought in light of the study's findings. Fowler interprets the writings of public intellectuals like Robert Bellah, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Michael Walzer, William Bennett, Seymour Martin Lipset, William Galston, and others, as well as survey data of American political attitudes, to spotlight this oft-ignored divide between citizens and high-profile commentators, whose contentious debates are mistakenly assumed to reflect countrywide rifts. Fowler's argument is straightforward, but the interpretation is controversial. He recounts how the consensus liberal view in post-World War II American political thought collapsed among public intellectuals during the tumult of the 1960s and remains so to this day. His book examines the resultant diversity among contemporary public intellectuals, focusing on three predominant themes: concern for community, worry about the environment, and interest in civil society. In marked contrast to these disputatious commentators, Fowler finds the realm of popular opinion to be characterized by much greater consensus. Indeed, there seems to be a trend toward an even more general embrace of the liberal values that characterize our attitudes toward the individual, individual liberty, political equality, economic opportunity, and consent of the governed. Liberal values-above all the celebration of the individual and individual rights-have revolutionized the so-called private realms of life like family and religious communities to an extent unimagined in the 1950s. From these conclusions, Fowler demonstrates that most interpretations of American political thinking have exaggerated the extent of conflict and diversity in our nation's often raucous policy disputes. But he also cautions us not to overstate the public's widely shared liberal values and, by doing so, miss opportunities to facilitate problem solving or to recognize the ways in which our reform efforts may be constrained.

This book argues that principles are only a limited guide to dissent in unique, contingent circumstances. There are times when we need to accommodate the dreadfulness of loss for opponents, even when the cause for which they fight is unjust. We may also have to come to terms with the irreversibility of historic injustice and reconcile.

In recent years serious attempts have been made to systematize and develop the moral and political themes of great philosophers of the past. Kant, Locke, Marx, and the classical utilitarians all have their current defenders and arc taken seriously as expositors of sound moral and political views. It is the aim of this book to introduce Hobbes into this select group by presenting a plausible moral and political theory inspired by Leviathan. Using the techniques of analytic philosophy and elementary game theory, the author develops a Hobbesian argument that justifies the liberal State and reconciles the rights and interests of rational individuals with their obligations. Hobbes's case against anarchy, based on his notorious claim that life outside the political State would be a "war of all against all," is analyzed in detail, while his endorsement of the absolutist State is traced to certain false hypotheses about political sociology. With these eliminated, Hobbes's principles support a liberal redistributive (or "satisfactory") State and a limited right of revolution. Turning to normative issues, the book explains Hobbes's account of morality based on enlightened self-interest and shows how the Hobbesian version of social contract theory justifies the political obligations of citizens of satisfactory States.

The decline of the Liberal party is one of the most controversial subjects in twentieth-century British politics, and this book makes a distinctive contribution to the debate by focusing on the South West, where Liberalism remained a powerful force after 1918. During the 1920s it was one of the few areas where the party survived as a major force. By the early 1950s, when the Liberals were fighting for their very existence, it was their early revival in the far west which provided morale and purpose. Victories in Cornwall and Devon after 1958 improved the party's credibility and effectively heralded the national Liberal revival. In recent years the regional Liberal Democrats have built on these historic foundations to emerge on equal terms with the Conservatives at Westminster and as the dominant party in local government. By concentrating on one region, this book offers fresh insight into issues relating to the UK as a whole. It moves away from the conventional focus on urban Britain to the neglected world of rural and small-town politics, and explores differences within the South West itself, from Celtic Cornwall in the far west to modern 'Wessex' in the east. A study of one of the key regions of Britain for the Liberal Party's survival and revival Raises important questions about the nature of regional politics Includes the significant 1997 election when the South West went against national trends