Liberal Philosophy

Below is a bibliography of books on liberal philosophical thought. This list serves as our ‘wish list’ for the National Liberal Club’s Library. All items in bold are works owned by the Club and all other works are pieces of liberal literature that we wish to own. If would like to contribute or donate to our Library, please contact the National Liberal Club’s Honorary Librarian, Dr. Seth Thévoz. Our thanks and acknowledgment to the Liberal History Group, who helped compile the original list of works found here.

General

• A. Arblaster, The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism (Blackwell, Oxford, 1984).
• R. Bellamy, Liberalism and Modern Society: An Historic Argument (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992)
• Robert Eccleshall (ed.), British Liberalism: Liberal Thought from the 1640s to the 1980s (Longman, London, 1986).
• Michael Freeden, Liberalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015).
• Edward Goodman, A Study of Liberty and Revolution (Duckworth, London, 1975).
• Simon Maccoby (ed.), The English Radical Tradition 1763-1914 (London, 1952).
• Conrad Russell, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Liberalism (Duckworth, London, 1999).

The Origins

• A. Ashcroft, Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1986).
• R. Browning, Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Court Whigs (Baton Rouge, 1982).
• Rene Descartes, The World (1633).
• ____________, Discourse on the Method (1637).
• ____________,  Meditations on First Philosophy (1641).
• ____________, Principles of Philosophy (1644).
• ____________, Passions of the Soul (1649).
• David L Jacobson (ed.), The English Libertarian Heritage (Fox & Wilkes, San Francisco, 1965, reprinted 1994).
• John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration and Two Treatises of Government (both 1689).
• V. Chappell, The Cambridge Companion to Locke (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994)
• J. Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1969)
• John Milton, Areopagitica (1644).
• __________, John Milton’s Prose Writings (Dent, London, 1958).
• David Armitage, Armand Himy and Quentin Skinner (eds), Milton and Republicanism (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996).
• Quentin Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998).
• Quentin Skinner and Martin van Gelderen (eds), Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002).
• _______________________________________, Freedom and the Construction of Europe, 2 vols. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013).
• David Wooton (ed), Divine Right and Democracy, An Anthology of Political Writing in Stuart England (Penguin, London, 1986).

The Eighteenth Century and Whiggery

• Edmund Burke, A Vindication of Natural Society (London, 1756).
• ____________, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (London, 1757).
• ____________, Reflections on the Revolution in France (London, 1790). 
• ____________, An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791).
• ____________, Letters on a Regicide Peace (London, 1796-7).
• ____________, Speech on Conciliation with the [American] Colonies (London, 1775).
• ____________, Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (London, 1777).
• ____________, Speech on Fox’s East India Bill (London, 1783).
• ____________, Opening Speech In The Impeachment Trial Of Warren Hastings (London, 1788).
• ____________, Tracts on the Popery Laws in Ireland.
• Isaac Kramnick (ed), Viking Portable Edmund Burke (Harmondsworth, 1999).
• Edmund Burke; David Bromwich (ed), On Empire, Liberty, and Reform: Speeches and Letters (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2000).
• Paul Langford and others (eds), Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981)
• P. J. Marshall (ed) Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke: The Indian Writings (Oxford University Press, Oxford, n.d.)
• Peter Stanlis, Edmund Burke: Select Writings and Speeches (Washington, D.C., 1963)
• E.J. Payne (ed), Select Works of Edmund Burke, 3 vols. (Liberty Fund, Inc., Indianapolis, reprint, 1874-8).
• Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781).
• _____________, Critique of Practical Reason (1788).
• _____________, Critique of Judgment (1790).
• _____________, Metaphysics of Morals (1797).
• Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees (1714).
• ________________, Free Thoughts on Religion (1720).
• ________________, A Search into the Nature of Society (1723).
• ________________, An Inquiry into the Origin of Honour and the Usefulness of Christianity (1732).
• Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron Montesquieu, Persian Letters (1721).
• _______________________________________, Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline (1734).
• _______________________________________, The Spirit of the Laws (1748).
• _______________________________________, In Defence of ‘The Spirit of the Laws’ (1750).
• _______________________________________, Essays on Taste (1757).
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense (London, 1776).
• ___________, American Crisis (London, 1776).
• ___________, Rights of Man (London, 1791-2).
• ___________, The Age of Reason (London, 1793).
• ___________, The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance (London, 1796).
• ___________, Agrarian Justice (London, 1797).
• Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (London, 1759).
• __________, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols. (George Bell, London, 1776 [1892 ed.].
• William Thomas, The Philosophic Radicals, (Oxford, 1979)

The Nineteenth Century and Classical Liberalism

• Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (Thomas Nelson, London, 1867).
• E. Barker, Political Thought in England from 1848 to 1914 (London, 1950)
• Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789).
• ______________, Rationale of Judicial Evidence (London, 1827).
• ______________, Constitutional Code (London, 1830).
• Crane Brinton, English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1949).
• J. Burrow, Whigs and Liberals: Continuity & Change in English Political Thought (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1988).
• Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1840,).
• __________________, The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856).
• A.V. Dicey, England’s Case Against Home Rule (John Murray, London, 1886).
• _________, Law and Public Opinion in Britain During the Nineteenth Century (Macmillan, London, 1963 reprint from 1905).
• Henry George, Progress and Poverty (London, 1879).
• T.H. Green, Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1881).
• _________, Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (Longmans, London, 1886 [1941 ed.]).
• _________, Prolegomena to Ethics (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1890).
• Paul Harris and John Morrow (ed.), Works of T.H. Green (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986).
• T.H.R.L. Nettleship (ed.), Works of T.H. Green (London, 1885–88).
• Melvin Richter, The Politics of Conscience: T. H. Green and His Age (London, 1964).
• Andrew Vincent (ed.), The Philosophy of Thomas Hill Green (Aldershot, 1986).
• Elie Halevy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism (Faber & Faber, 1928).
• G.W.F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right (London, 1821).
• John Stuart Mill, M. De Tocqueville on Democracy in America (London, 1840).
• _____________, A System of Logic (London, 1843).
• _____________, Principles of Political Economy (London, 1848).
• _____________, On Liberty (London, 1859).
• _____________, Considerations on Representative Government (London, 1861).
• _____________, Utilitarianism (London, 1861).
• _____________, The Subjection of Women (London, 1869).
• Ronald Fletcher, John Stuart Mill: A Logical Critique of Sociology (Michael Joseph, London, 1971).
• Stuart Hollander, The Economics of John Stuart Mill, Volume I: Theory and Method (University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1985).
• _____________, The Economics of John `Stuart Mill, Volume II: Political Economy (University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1985).
• Pedro Schwartz, The New Political Economy of J.S. Mill (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1968).
• John Morley, On Compromise (Watts, London, 1933 reprint of rev. 1922 ed.).
• Robert Owen, A New View of Society (1813, any edition).
• ___________, An Explanation of the Cause of Distress Which Pervades the Civilised Parts of the World (1823, any edition).
• ___________, The Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race (1849, any edition).
• David Ricardo, The High Price of Bullion, a Proof of the Depreciation of Bank Notes (London, 1809).
• ____________, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (London, 1817).
• George H. Smith, The System of Liberty: Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013).

The Twentieth Century and New Liberalism

• Hilaire Belloc, The Party System (London, 1911).
• ___________, The Servile State (London, 1912).
• Isaiah Berlin [Henry Hardy (ed.)], Liberty (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002).
  • Michael Ignatieff, Isaiah Berlin: A Life (Chatto & Windus, London, 1998).
  • Henry Hardy (ed.), Isaiah Berlin: Freedom and its Betrayal – Six Enemies of Human Liberty (Pimlico, London, 2003).
• William Beveridge, Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (London, 1909).
• _______________, Tariffs: The Case Examined (Longmans, London, 1932).
• _______________, Social Insurance and Allied Services (London, 1942).
• _______________, Full Employment in a Free Society (London, 1944).
• _______________ (as Sir William Beveridge), Why I Am a Liberal (Herbert Jenkins, London, 1945).
• _______________ (Lord Beveridge), Voluntary Action: A Report on Methods of Social Advance (London, 1948).
• Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (G. Bell and Sons, London, 1959).
• Roger Fulford, The Liberal Case (Penguin, London, 1959). 
• J.K. Galbraith, American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power (Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1952).
• ___________, The Affluent Society (Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1958).
• ___________, The New Industrial State (Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1967).
• ___________, Economics and the Public Purpose (Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1973).
• ___________, The Nature of Mass Poverty (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1979).
• ___________, The Anatomy of Power (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, 1983).
• ___________, The Economics of Innocent Fraud: Truth for Our Time (Houghton Mifflin, New York, 2004).
• L.T. Hobhouse, The Labour Movement (London, 1893).
• ____________, The Mind in Evolution (London, 1901).
• ____________, Democracy and Reaction (London, 1904).
• ____________, Social Evolution and Political Theory (London, 1906).
• ____________, Liberalism (London, 1911).
  • Stefan Collini, Liberalism and Sociology: L.T. Hobhouse and Political Argument in England, 1880-1914 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979).
  • J.A. Hobson and Morris Ginsberg, L.T. Hobhouse, His Life and Work (London, 1931).
  • James Meadowcroft (ed.), Hobhouse: Liberalism and Other Writings (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994).
• J.A. Hobson, The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (London, 1894).
• __________, The War in South Africa (London, 1900).
• __________, The Psychology of Jingoism (London, 1901).
• __________, Imperialism (London, 1902).
• __________, The Industrial System (London, 1909).
• __________, The Crisis of Liberalism (London, 1909).
• __________, Towards International Government (London, 1914).
• J.A. Hobson and A. Mummery, The Physiology of Industry (London, 1889).
  • John Allett, New Liberalism: The Politcial Economy of J.A. Hobson (Toronto University Press. Toronto, 1981).
  • Michael Freeden, J.A. Hobson: A Reader (London, 1988).
  • _____________, Reappraising J.A. Hobson: Humanism and Welfare (London, 1990).
  • _____________, Liberal Languages: Ideological Imaginations and Twentieth Century Progressive Thought (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2005).
  • Jules Townshend, J.A. Hobson (London, 1990).
• John Gray, Liberalisms: Essays in Political Philosophy (London, 1989).
• ________, Post-Liberalism: Studies in Political Thought (London, 1993).
• ________, Two Faces of Liberalism (London, 2000).
• Peter Hain, Radical Regeneration (Quartet Books, London, 1975).
• Peter Hain (ed.), Community Politics (John Calder, London, 1976).
• J.L. and Barbara Hammond, The Village Labourer, 1760-1832 (London, 1911).
• ______________________, The Town Labourer, 1760-1832: The New Civilisation (London, 1917).
• ______________________, The Skilled Labourer (London, 1919).
• _______________________, The Bleak Age (Penguin, London, 1947).
• Friedrich von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (London, 1944).
• _________________, The Constitution of Liberty (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960).
• _________________, New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1978).
  • Gaetano Pecora, The Anomalous Liberalism of Friedrich August Von Hayek (Rubbettino/European Liberal Forum, Rome, 2014).
• Roy Jenkins, Pursuit of Progress (London, 1953).
• __________, What Matters Now (Collins, London, 1972).
• David Marquand, The Unprincipled Society: New Demands and Old Politics (Fontana Press, London, 1988).
• _______________, The Progressive Dilemma (London, 1998 [rev. ed.]).
• C.F.G. Masterman, The Heart of the Empire (London, 1901).
• _______________, The Condition of England (London, 1909).
• _______________, The New Liberalism (London, 1920).
• John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Longman & Green, London, 1865).
• _____________, The Subjection of Women (London, 1869).
• Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies (Routledge, London, 1945).
• John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1971).
• _________, A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999 [2nd ed.]).
• _________, Political Liberalism (Columbia University Press, New York, 2005 [3rd ed.]).
• Herbert Samuel, Liberalism: An Attempt to State the Principles and Purpose of Contemporary Liberalism in England (Grant Richards, London, 1902).
• George Watson (ed.), The Unservile State: Essays in Liberty and Welfare (Allen & Unwin, London, 1957).
• _________________, Radical Alternative: Studies in Liberalism by the Oxford Liberal Group (Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1962).
• _________________, The Idea of Liberalism: Studies for a New Map of Politics (Macmillan, London, 1985).
• _________________, The Lost Literature of Socialism (Lutterworth Press, Cambridge, 1998; rev. 2010 ed.).

The Twenty-first Century and beyond

• Bruce A. Ackerman, Social Justice and the Liberal State (Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 1980).
• Bruce A. Ackerman and Anne Alstott, The Stakeholder Society (Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 2000).
• Richard Bellamy, Liberalism and Pluralism: Towards a Politics of Compromise (London, 1999).
• _____________, Rethinking Liberalism (Bloomsbury, London, 2005).
• Neville Brown, The Bounds of Liberalism: The Fragility of Freedom (Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, 2014).
• Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002).
• Edmund Fawcett, Liberalism: The Life of an Idea (Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2014).
• Domenico Losurdo, Liberalism: A Counter-History (Verso Books, London, 2011).
• Helena Rosenblatt, The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2018).
• Amartya Sen, Rationality and Freedom (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002).
• ___________, The Idea of Justice (Penguin, London, 2010).
• ___________, Peace and Democratic Society (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011).

Robert R. Sullivan, Liberalism and Crime: The British Experience (Lexington Books, Lanham, Maryland, 2000).