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The Future of Liberalism by Alan Wolfe
- Abstract
The liberal hour is at hand. A progressive Democratic President, an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, an opposition in disarray, a public mandate to “do something” to fix the economy and the financial system—these cascading conditions are providing American liberals with a rare opportunity to set national priorities and to enact their long-bottled-up domestic agenda.
Alan Wolfe’s new book, The Future of Liberalism, is therefore appearing at a fortuitous moment. A prolific author and sociologist who directs the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, Wolfe argues not only that liberalism has a future but that it is the philosophy preeminently suited to our time. At their best, he argues, liberals express an ideal of an unfolding and open-ended future, in contrast to leftists, who mistakenly try to engineer the future, and conservatives, who are too strongly attached to tradition to make the necessary adaptations to the challenges of contemporary life.
About the Author
James Piereson is the author of a new book, Camelot and Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism, based in part on his article “Lee Harvey Oswald and the Liberal Crack-Up” in the May 2006 COMMENTARY.
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