Since 1989, the Cold War has ended, new nations have emerged in Eastern Europe, and revolutionary struggles to establish liberal ideals have been waged against repressive governments throughout the world. Will the promise of liberalism be realized? What can liberals do to make the most of their opportunities and construct enduring forms of political order? In this important and timely book, a leading political theorist discusses the possibility of liberal democracy in Western and Eastern Europe and offers practical suggestions for its realization. Bruce Ackerman begins by sketching the challenges faced a Western Europe free for the first time in half a century to determine its own fate without the constant intervention of the United States and the Soviet Union. Unless decisive steps are taken, this moment of promise can degenerate into a new cycle of nationalist power struggle. Revolutionary action is now required to build the foundations of a democratic federal Europe--a union strong enough to keep the peace and to combat the threat of local tyrannies. Ackerman next considers Eastern Europe and discusses fundamental problems overlooked in the rush to build market economies there. He points out that leading countries--including Poland, Hungary, and Russia--have yet to establish new constitutions, contenting themselves instead with hasty amendments to old Communist documents. This is a great mistake, says Ackerman, for there is an urgent need to constitutionalize liberal revolution, and the window of opportunity for doing this is far smaller than many people realize. Neither judicial efforts to punish collaborators with the old regimes and to redress wrongs done to their victims nor the judicial activism now sweeping Eastern Europe should take priority over the formulation of democratically legitimated constitutions. Ackerman concludes by considering the impact of 1989 on South Africa, Latin America, and the United States, exploring how decisive liberal action throughout the world can help to expand the range of functioning constitutional democracies and recover liberalism's lost revolutionary heritage. .

Since 1989, the Cold War has ended, new nations have emerged in Eastern Europe, and revolutionary struggles to establish liberal ideals have been waged against repressive governments throughout the world. Will the promise of liberalism be realized? What can liberals do to make the most of their opportunities and construct enduring forms of political order? In this important and timely book, a leading political theorist discusses the possibility of liberal democracy in Western and Eastern Europe and offers practical suggestions for its realization. Bruce Ackerman begins by sketching the challenges faced a Western Europe free for the first time in half a century to determine its own fate without the constant intervention of the United States and the Soviet Union. Unless decisive steps are taken, this moment of promise can degenerate into a new cycle of nationalist power struggle. Revolutionary action is now required to build the foundations of a democratic federal Europe—a union strong enough to keep the peace and to combat the threat of local tyrannies. Ackerman next considers Eastern Europe and discusses fundamental problems overlooked in the rush to build market economies there. He points out that leading countries—including Poland, Hungary, and Russia—have yet to establish new constitutions, contenting themselves instead with hasty amendments to old Communist documents. This is a great mistake, says Ackerman, for there is an urgent need to constitutionalize liberal revolution, and the window of opportunity for doing this is far smaller than many people realize. Neither judicial efforts to punish collaborators with the old regimes and to redress wrongs done to their victims nor the judicial activism now sweeping Eastern Europe should take priority over the formulation of democratically legitimated constitutions. Ackerman concludes by considering the impact of 1989 on South Africa, Latin America, and the United States, exploring how decisive liberal action throughout the world can help to expand the range of functioning constitutional democracies and recover liberalism's lost revolutionary heritage. .

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.

"The Lost History of Liberalism challenges our most basic assumptions about a political creed that has become a rallying cry - and a term of derision - in today's increasingly divided public square. Taking readers from ancient Rome to today, Helena Rosenblatt traces the evolution of the words "liberal" and "liberalism," revealing the heated debates that have taken place over their meaning. In this timely and provocative book, Rosenblatt debunks the popular myth of liberalism as a uniquely Anglo-American tradition centered on individual rights. It was only during the Cold War and America's growing world hegemony that liberalism was refashioned into an American ideology focused so strongly on individual freedoms."--

Ever since its first publication in 1992, the New York Times bestselling The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. "Profoundly realistic and important...supremely timely and cogent...the first book to fully fathom the depth and range of the changes now sweeping through the world." —The Washington Post Book World Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.

Questioning developments in human genetic research from the perspective of people with mental disabilities and their families, Reinders (ethics and mental disability, Vrije U., Amsterdam) argues that using terms such as disease and defect to describe conditions that genetic engineering might eliminate, may also be suggesting that disabled lives are deplorable and horrific. Focusing too narrowly on preventing disabled lives, he warns, is at odds with a commitment to including disabled people fully in society. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

In The Global Left: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Immanuel Wallerstein takes stock of the practices of the left, historically in the time of its great ideals and today in the midst of the global crisis of capitalism. He underlines the urgency of seeing the emergence of a global and united left that can pave the way out of the centuries-old domination of capital, considering antisystemic movements, dilemmas of the left in relation to the structural crisis of the modern world-system, and tactics and strategies for political action. The book includes new essays by Étienne Balibar, James K. Galbraith, Johan Galtung, Nilüfer Göle, Pablo González Casanova, and Michel Wieviorka in conversation with Wallerstein’s core ideas.