Selected writings of Lord Acton / by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, First Baron Acton ; edited by J. Rufus Fears.

In this important new book, Paul T. Phillips argues that most professional historians – aside from a relatively small number devoted to theory and methodology – have concerned themselves with particular, specialized areas of research, thereby ignoring the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning. This is less so in the thriving general community of history enthusiasts beyond academia, and may explain, in part at least, history’s sharp decline as a subject of choice by students in recent years. Phillips sees great dangers resulting from the thinking of extreme relativists and postmodernists on the futility of attaining historical truth, especially in the age of "post-truth." He also believes that moral judgment and the search for meaning in history should be considered part of the discipline’s mandate. In each section of this study, Phillips outlines the nature of individual issues and past efforts to address them, including approaches derived from other disciplines. This book is a call to action for all those engaged in the study of history to direct more attention to the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning.

Volume 1: The unifying theme of these essays is Lord Acton's concept of liberty. Included are his two famous essays on the history of freedom (The History of Freedom in Antiquity; and The History of Freedom in Christianity) as are writings on the tradition of liberty in England, America, and Europe. Volume 2 brings together Acton's distinguished writings on history. Included is his famous Inaugural Lecture at Cambridge: The Study of History. Writing on many diverse topics, Acton argues that history demonstrates progress and unity through the story of liberty and that the study of history should be impartial, based on archival research, and founded in moral judgement. Volume 3: Focuses on the intersection of religion with moral and political issues. Also included are three important essays: Human Sacrifice; George Eliot's Life; and Buckle's Philosophy of History. The last section is composed of nearly two hundred pages of excerpts from Acton's remarkable letters and unpublished notes.

Liberal individualism, or "classical liberalism" as it is often called, refers to a political philosophy in which liberty plays the central role. This book demonstrates a conceptual unity within the manifestations of classical liberalism by tracing the history of several interrelated and reinforcing themes. Concepts such as order, justice, rights, and freedom have imparted unity to this diverse political ideology by integrating context and meaning. However, they have also sparked conflict, as classical liberals split on a number of issues, such as legitimate exceptions to the "presumption of liberty," the meaning of "the public good," natural rights versus utilitarianism, the role of the state in education, and the rights of resistance and revolution. This book explores these conflicts and their implications for contemporary liberal and libertarian thought.