The Struggle for a Decent Politics

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What to expect

A testament to what it means to be liberal by one of the most prominent political philosophers of our era

There was a time when liberalism was an ism like any other, but that time, writes Michael Walzer, is gone. “Liberal” now conveys not a specific ideology but a moral stance, so the word is best conceived not as a noun but as an adjective—one is a “liberal democrat” or a “liberal nationalist.” Walzer itemizes the characteristics described by “liberal” in an inventory of his own deepest political and moral commitments—among other things, to the principle of equality, to the rule of law, and to a pluralism that is both political and cultural. Unabashedly asserting that liberalism is a universal set of values (“it must be universal,” he writes, “since it is under attack everywhere”), Walzer reminds us in this inspiring book why those values are worth fighting for.

Critics Review

  • “This little book by one of the most eminent thinkers of our time contains more political wisdom and moral decency than shelves of tomes on liberalism and its discontents. There is no better defender or critic of our ‘seriously imperfect liberal democracy’ than Michael Walzer.”

    Michael Kazin, author of What It Took to Win

  • “The Struggle for a Decent Politics is one of those books that we may come to think of as making the case for liberalism at its best. There are many distinguished predecessors in this list, from J. S. Mill’s On Liberty to Lionel Trilling’s Liberal Imagination to Isaiah Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty. It would not surprise me if one day we thought of Michael Walzer’s book in this company. It deserves to be.”

    Steven B. Smith, author of Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes

  • “In this remarkable, deeply personal book, Michael Walzer melds political theory and un-elegiac memoir to trace the perennial struggle between liberalism and its enemies, a struggle that flashes in every facet of his political life—and ours. Walzer’s lifetime of learning and reflection has yielded an undimmed spirit of defiance, not just of brutal injustice but of the cults of true doctrine that injustice inspires. We’ve never needed that spirit more than now.”

    Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy

  • “Michael Walzer’s new book is a departure—it’s his most personal work yet—and, also, a continuation of the themes he’s developed so incisively for over four decades. This is a sometimes surprising, always illuminating look at key political concepts you may think you know (but don’t). The Struggle for a Decent Politics reminds us of what is worth fighting for, and of what can be lost.”

    Susie Linfield, author of The Lions' Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky

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