There are many books about liberalism, but no defence of radical critique that treats liberal theory with the depth, breadth and intensity of this work. Rigorously examining Rawls, Waldron, Larmore and Kymlicka, the book demonstrates that an adequate appreciation of the deep structural ?aws of liberal theory presupposes the application of a critical philosophical methodology that has the power to reveal the systemic interconnections within and between the varieties of liberal inquiring practices.

'A well argued and clearly written critique of liberal political theory, organized around its leading concepts -very accessible for student use.' Professor David Beetham. In this book Maureen Ramsay provides an accessible and comprehensive critique of the key concepts that underpin liberal political philosophy. Each chapter tackles a different concept and analyses the contribution of representative thinkers in seventeenth- and eighteenth- century liberal thought, and contemporary developments and modifications to classical librealism. The purpose of each chapter is to evaluate the concepts and theories central to the liberal tradition from a variety of critical perspectives, in order to expose the empirical, theoretical, practical and moral deficiencies at the heart of liberal thought. The arguments presented here challenge the validity of liberal political ideas, values, institutions and policies, and demonstrate the bankruptcy of liberalism in theory and preactice. This book will be essential reading for students of politics, government and moral and political philosophy. Maureen Ramsay is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Leeds.

Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism offers a theoretical reconstruction of Karl Marx’s new materialist understanding of justice, legality, and rights through the vantage point of his widely invoked but generally misunderstood critique of liberalism. The book begins by reconstructing Marx’s conception of justice and rights through close textual interpretation and extrapolation. The central thesis of the book is, firstly, that Marx regards justice as an essential feature of any society, including the emancipated society of the future; and secondly, that standards of justice and right undergo transformation throughout history. The book then tracks the enduring legacy of Marx’s critique of liberal justice by examining how leading contemporary political theorists such as John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Nancy Fraser have responded to Marx’s critique of liberalism in the face of global financial capitalism and the hollowing out of democratically-enacted law. The Marx that emerges from this book is therefore a thoroughly modern thinker whose insights shed valuable light on some of the most pressing challenges confronting liberal democracies today.

Bleak liberalism -- Liberalism in the age of high realism -- Revisiting the political novel -- The liberal aesthetic in the postwar era: the case of Trilling and Adorno -- Bleak liberalism and the realism/modernism debate: Ellison and Lessing

Much contemporary political philosophy has been a debate between utilitarianism on the one hand and Kantian, or rights-based ethic has recently faced a growing challenge from a different direction, from a view that argues for a deeper understanding of citizenship and community than the liberal ethic allows. The writings collected in this volume present leading statements of rights-based liberalism and of the communitarian, or civic republican alternatives to that position. The principle of selection has been to shift the focus from the familiar debate between utilitarians and Kantian liberals in order to consider a more powerful challenge ot the rights-based ethic, a challenge indebted, broadly speaking, to Aristotle, Hegel, and the civic republican tradition. Contributors include Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, Alasdair MacIntyre.

Liberalism is the political philosophy of equal persons, yet liberalism has denied equality to those it saw as black sub-persons. In Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism, political philosopher Charles Mills challenges mainstream accounts that ignore this history and its current legacy in the United States today.