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Cover -- THE LOST HISTORY OF LIBERALISM -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1 What It Meant to Be Liberal from Cicero to Lafayette -- Republican Beginnings: A Moral and Civic Ideal -- Medieval Rearticulations: Liberality Christianized -- Renaissance Liberal Arts -- The Politics of Giving -- Protestant Developments -- American Exceptionalism and the Liberal Tradition -- Thomas Hobbes and John Locke on Liberality -- Enlightenment Liberality -- Enlightenment Transformations -- Liberal Theology and Liberal Christianity -- Liberality Politicized -- From Liberal Charters to Liberal Constitutions -- America, the Most Liberal Country in the World -- CHAPTER 2 The French Revolution and the Origins of Liberalism, 1789-1830 -- The Liberal Principles of Benjamin Constant and Madame de Staël -- Enter Napoleon -- Liberal Parties and the Birth of Liberalism -- Liberalism Theorized -- Liberalism Confronts Reaction -- Liberal Insurrectionism -- Liberal Economic Principles -- Liberal Exclusions -- CHAPTER 3 Liberalism, Democracy, and the Emergence of the Social Question, 1830-48 -- The Liberal Government Turns Conservative -- Liberals on Democracy -- Liberals and Insurrection, Again -- Liberals Face the "Social Question" -- Laissez-Faire and Liberalism -- The Many Necessary Functions of Government -- Liberals on Colonies -- The Liberal Battle with Religion -- The Socialist Critique of Liberal Religion -- CHAPTER 4 The Question of Character -- The Debacle of 1848 -- Liberals Battle Socialism -- Retreat and Reaction -- Pius IX -- The Problem of Selfishness -- The Rise of the British Liberal Party -- Laissez-Faire versus Bildung -- The Role of the Family -- The Religion of Humanity -- CHAPTER 5 Caesarism and Liberal Democracy: Napoleon III, Lincoln, Gladstone, and Bismarck -- Napoleon III and Caesarism.

Benjamin Constant is widely regarded as a founding father of modern liberalism. The Cambridge Companion to Constant presents a collection of interpretive essays on the major aspects of his life and work by a panel of international scholars, offering a necessary overview for anyone who wants to better understand this important thinker. Separate sections are devoted to Constant as a political theorist and actor, his work as a social analyst and literary critic, and his accomplishments as a historian of religion. Themes covered range from Constant's views on modern liberty, progress, terror, and individualism, to his ideas on slavery and empire, literature, women, and the nature and importance of religion. The Cambridge Companion to Constant is a convenient and accessible guide to Constant and the most up-to-date scholarship on him.

Rousseau and Geneva reconstructs the main aspects of Genevan socio-economic, political and religious thought in the first half of the eighteenth century. In this way Dr Rosenblatt effectively contextualizes the development of Rousseau's thought from the First Discourse through to the Social Contract. Over time Rousseau has been adopted as a French thinker, but this adoption obscures his Genevan origin. Dr Rosenblatt points out that he is, in fact, a Genevan thinker and illustrates that Rousseau's classical republicanism, his version of natural law theory, his civil religion and his hostility to the arguments of doux commerce theorists are all responses to the political use of such arguments in Geneva. The author also points out that it was this relationship with Geneva that played an integral part in his development into an original political thinker

People often seem to forget that Rousseau dedicated his Second Discourse to "The Republic of Geneva." This is a shame because, in doing so, they miss precious clues not only about the meaning of the Discourse itself, but also about its place in Rousseau's political thought as a whole. It is also rather curious, because Rousseau's dedicatory letter to Geneva is actually not so easy to overlook; in the Pléiade edition it takes up more than ten pages of tightly worded text and is thus almost twice as long as Rousseau's more frequently cited "Preface" that follows it. Ignoring the dedication is, of course, part of a larger and more general problem in Rousseau scholarship: the still widespread tendency to read Rousseau out of historical context and with little concern for his intended meaning.

Recent years have seen a remarkable renewal of interest in the thought of Benjamin Constant (1767–1830). For long recognized as the author of the literary masterpiece Adolphe, Constant is now receiving increasing attention for his political writings. Paperback editions of his major works are presently available in both French and English, helping to establish his growing reputation as a founding father of modern liberalism. Constant's stature as a seminal liberal thinker has benefited from the recent climate of opinion in the Western world and, in particular, from the return to fashion of liberalism as a social and political doctrine. Paradoxically, however, this political climate has also led to some problems, since presentist concerns have left an undeniable imprint on the image we have of Constant.