NOTE: This is a review, published today in the AMAZON US site, of the book The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century, written by Helena Rosenblatt. The publication is in the following URL, from which it was transcribed here:
https://www.amazon.com/review/R1OD1YH65QLDFM/
First of all, I want to thank C. Puplick, author of the magistral Liberal Thinking: A Contemporary Statement of Liberal Philosophy, published in 1980, and unfortunately out of print presently, for his review here in this site. In my view it is mostly in the correct direction and it inspired me to write the present review.
By the way, for those that do know it, Puplick (full name: Christopher John Guelph Puplick) is an Australian former politician (though born in England, in 1948), still alive and kicking… He was a member of the Australian Senate during the late 1970’s and throughout the 1980’s. Then Australia chose to go in a different (illiberal) political direction and he was not reelected, which was too bad (for Australia), in my opinion.
I will in what follows make a light criticism of Puplick’s review, try to make clear why I, like Puplick, but for different reasons, do not agree with the main thesis of Helena Rosenblatt’s book, and, finally, explain why I give her book five stars in this review, although I flatly disagree with her understanding of liberalism and with the main thesis of her book.
FIRST: My major disagreement with Puplick has two prongs: (a) on the one hand, it has to do with his charge that Rosenblatt “misses the fine but critical distinction between liberalism and libertarianism”; and, (b) on the other hand, it has to do with his assertion that “it’s the latter [libertarianism] which owes its origins to the French and American Revolutions and is now [then-date of his review, 2019, probably a bit earlier] manifest in the Yellow Vest and Tea Party movements.”.
Regarding (a), Rosenblatt, in my opinion, does not miss the distinction between liberalism and libertarianism. What she does is to place her view of liberalism, which is basically FDR’s New Deal liberalism, which became the main political platform of the Democratic Party in the USA to this day, as the paradigm for looking at the entire history of liberalism. This twentieth-century American version of liberalism is a misnomer, proposed by the American democrats. It certainly does not have its roots in the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution and of the USA and their British antecedents (mostly John Locke and Adam Smith). It is reasonable to suggest that its roots are in nineteenth-century various European socialist initiatives (including the Fabian Socialism in Britain). The American libertarians mentioned by Puplick tried to recover the (classical!) liberalism of the Founding Fathers (and of Locke and Smith) AND radicalize it to the point that it became almost a form of anarchical liberalism or liberal anarchism – and did this in order to prevent the growth of the “liberalism”, in quotation marks, of the American Democratic Party.
Regarding (b), it is not the libertarian movement which arose around the Tea Party initiative which owes its origins to the French Revolution, but the “liberalism” of the Democratic Party. (By the way, Puplick seems to consider that the French Revolution was of the same ideological nature and had the same theoretical basis as the American Revolution: if he does think that, I think he is wrong, but this is another issue.)
SECOND: My view of what Helena Rosenblatt tries to do in her book is that it is not a “revisionist” reconstruction of perennial liberalism (classical liberalism, for those that prefer to use this expression). She tries to present as the “real and true liberalism” what in truth is a “counterfeit liberalism”, or “fake liberalism”, namely, the ideology of the French Revolution (not of the American Revolution), which is much closer to the thought of the present-day Democratic Party of the USA (and to the positions of the United Nations Organization) than it is to the thought of the Founding Fathers and of Locke, Smith (and, I should add, David Hume, on whom I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation in the years 1970-1972 at Pitt). This is my main criticism of Helena Rosenblatt.
THIRD: Why do I assign five stars to Rosenblatt’s book even though I totally disagree with her main thesis? Because it is a good piece of academic work that is quite informative and enjoyable to read, even though her main thesis is, in my opinion, wrong. And, after all, because I am a classical liberal who can appreciate a good book even though I totally disagree with its main thesis. The book is worth reading.
Salto, SP, Brazil, June 23rd, 2026
Eduardo Chaves
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What
Rosenblatt Calls Liberalism is Mostly Fake Liberalism First of
all, I want to thank C. Puplick, author of the magistral Liberal Thinking: A
Contemporary Statement of Liberal Philosophy, published in 1980, and
unfortunately out of print presently, for his review here in this site. In my
view it is mostly in the correct direction and it inspired me to write the
present review. By the way,
for those that do know it, Puplick (full name: Christopher John Guelph Puplick)
is an Australian former politician (though born in England, in 1948), still
alive and kicking… He was a member of the Australian Senate during the late
1970’s and throughout the 1980’s. Then Australia chose to go in a different (illiberal)
political direction and he was not reelected, which was too bad (for Australia),
in my opinion. I will in
what follows make a light criticism of Puplick’s review, try to make clear why
I, like Puplick, but for different reasons, do not agree with the main thesis
of Helena Rosenblatt’s book, and, finally, explain why I give her book five
stars in this review, although I flatly disagree with her understanding of
liberalism and with the main thesis of her book. FIRST: My
major disagreement with Puplick has two prongs: (a) on the one hand, it has to
do with his charge that Rosenblatt “misses the fine but critical
distinction between liberalism and libertarianism”; and, (b) on the other
hand, it has to do with his assertion that “it’s the latter
[libertarianism] which owes its origins to the French and American Revolutions
and is now [then-date of his review, 2019, probably a bit earlier] manifest in
the Yellow Vest and Tea Party movements.”. Regarding
(a), Rosenblatt, in my opinion, does not miss the distinction between
liberalism and libertarianism. What she does is to place her view of
liberalism, which is basically FDR’s New Deal liberalism, which became the main
political platform of the Democratic Party in the USA to this day, as the
paradigm for looking at the entire history of liberalism. This
twentieth-century American version of liberalism is a misnomer, proposed by the
American democrats. It certainly does not have its roots in the Founding
Fathers of the American Revolution and of the USA and their British antecedents
(mostly John Locke and Adam Smith). It is reasonable to suggest that its roots
are in nineteenth-century various European socialist initiatives (including the
Fabian Socialism in Britain). The
American libertarians mentioned by Puplick tried to recover the (classical!) liberalism
of the Founding Fathers (and of Locke and Smith) AND radicalize it to the point
that it became almost a form of anarchical liberalism or liberal anarchism –
and did this in order to prevent the growth of the “liberalism”, in
quotation marks, of the American Democratic Party.Regarding
(b), it is not the libertarian movement which arose around the Tea Party
initiative which owes its origins to the French Revolution, but the “liberalism”
of the Democratic Party. (By the way, Puplick seems to consider that the French
Revolution was of the same ideological nature and had the same theoretical
basis as the American Revolution: if he does think that, I think he is wrong,
but this is another issue.) SECOND: My
view of what Helena Rosenblatt tries to do in her book is that it is not a
“revisionist” reconstruction of perennial liberalism (classical liberalism,
for those that prefer to use this expression). She tries to present as the
“real and true liberalism” what in truth is a “counterfeit liberalism”,
or “fake liberalism”, namely, the ideology of the French Revolution
(not of the American Revolution), which is much closer to the thought of the
present-day Democratic Party of the USA (and to the positions of the United
Nations Organization) than it is to the thought of the Founding Fathers and of
Locke, Smith (and, I should add, David Hume, on whom I wrote my Ph.D.
dissertation in the years 1970-1972 at Pitt). This is my main criticism of
Helena Rosenblatt. THIRD: Why
do I assign five stars to Rosenblatt’s book even though I totally disagree with
her main thesis? Because it is a good piece of academic work that is quite
informative and enjoyable to read, even though her main thesis is, in my
opinion, wrong. And, after all, because
I am a classical liberal who can appreciate a good book even though I totally disagree
with its main thesis. The book is worth reading. Salto, SP,
Brazil, June 23rd, 2026 Eduardo Chaves (ec@chv.im)
Liberal Space 