Liberalism, like democracy, is a hurrah-word. People as widely apart as Roy Jenkins and Lord Harris, and Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedmann and J.K. Galbraith, all claim to be liberals. But who are really the succesors to that great liberal triumvirate: Locke, Bentham and Mill? In this polemical book, Lord Russell has set for himself the task of defining the true touchstone of that great British institution, liberal philosophy. Lucidly analyzing how it worked in the past, he makes a passionate plea for its continued importance in the modern world. Liberalism couldn't be further removed from colourless pluralism or watered-down socialism. Its belief in individual autonomy is a vital political philosophy that we can only ignore at our peril.
