Will the Real Classical Liberals Please Stand Up? A Documentary Survey of Race and Liberty

Paul Harvey

Partly, but not totally, OT -- my review of Jonathan Bean, Race and Liberty: An Essential Reader, has been posted here at Books and Culture "Book of the Week" site.

For those interested, this book is a documentary compilation of thinkers from the "classical liberal tradition," who believed in its "fundamental doctrines of individual freedom from government control, the Constitution as a guarantor of freedom, color-blind law," capitalism, and religious faith as a preserver of the moral order. The book contends that this stood in contradistinction to "left-wing liberalism, with its emphasis on group rights, government power, and hostility to free market capitalism" [and, usually, religious belief].

So what is Martin Luther King doing in a place like this? Click here to find out.

Update: Jonathan Bean, the editor of the book under review, has responded to my review and defended his book here.