MixedThe New RepublicIn a book attuned to the power of words, it is surprising that \'neoliberalism\' appears only once, in passing ... In her long history of liberalism, Rosenblatt’s treatment of the twentieth century remains more or less restricted to showing the triumph of laissez-faire and individualist liberalism in America. Yet even in America, the \'generous\' stream of liberalism suggested by John Dewey persists—though it has undoubtedly been battered and bruised in recent decades. What is more, she gives relatively little attention to the fate of liberalism in twentieth-century France and Germany, even though, in the decades after World War II, France and West Germany were arguably the strongest embodiments of the older liberal traditions that she contrasts with post-war American liberalism ... Rosenblatt’s message for our own time is rather tepid ... can one convincingly designate these civic-minded qualities the core values of a political tradition that for two centuries has also repeatedly declared its allegiance to possessive individualism and the free market? ... Instead of leading us to a set of regenerative virtues, Rosenblatt’s account underscores the dilemmas that have chronically plagued liberalism.
