in a very different sense, to refer to the cultural community, or cultural structure, itself On this view, the cultural community continues to exist even when its members arc free to modify the character of the culture, should they find its traditional ...

This book is a major contribution to the current theory of liberalism by an eminent political theorist. It challenges the views of such theorists as Rawls, Dworkin, and Ackerman who believe that the essence of liberalism is that it should remain neutral concerning different ways of life and individual conceptions of what is good or valuable. Professor Galston argues that the modern liberal state is committed to a distinctive conception of the human good, and to that end has developed characteristic (...) institutions and practices - representative governments, diverse societies, market economies, and zones of private action - in the pursuit of specific public purposes that give unity to the liberal state. These purposes guide liberal public policy, shape liberal justice, require the practice of liberal virtues, and rest on a liberal public culture. Consequently the diversity characteristic of liberal societies is limited by their institutional, personal, and cultural preconditions. (shrink)

In What's the Matter with Liberalism? Ronald Beiner diagnoses the ills of liberalism along the three broad fronts where it is now widely challenged: its pretensions to moral neutrality; its lack of cultural standards; and its inability to deal with crime, unemployment, family breakdown, homeless‐ness, rampant consumerism, and global environmental and economic problems. But even in its minimalist classical formulation, liberalism entails a substantive moral position, and is committed to resisting the violations of rights that lead to the crises with (...) which Beiner is concerned. (shrink)

@lt;DIV@gt;Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., first revealed the sequences that governed American politics over the past two centuries in The Cycles of American History. In this updated edition, the prominent political historian continues to reflect on the "recurring struggle between pragmatism and idealism in the American soul" (Time). Faced with a new century, a new millennium, and social and technological revolutions, Schlesinger confronts the possibility of a revolution in American political cycles.@lt;/div@gt.