Description
Book SynopsisA revisionist history of American liberalism, from the Great Depression to the Cold War. Finalist of the MSA First Book Prize by The Modernist Studies AssociationIn Making Liberalism New, Ian Afflerbach traces the rise, revision, and fall of a modern liberalism in the United States, establishing this intellectual culture as distinct from classical predecessors as well as the neoliberalism that came to power by century's end. Drawing on a diverse archive that includes political philosophy, legal texts, studies of moral psychology, government propaganda, and presidential campaign materials, Afflerbach also delves into works by Tess Slesinger, Richard Wright, James Agee, John Dewey, Lionel Trilling, and Vladimir Nabokov. Throughout the book, he shows how a reciprocal pattern of influence between modernist literature and liberal intellectuals helped drive the remarkable writing and rewriting of this keyword in American political life. From the 1930s into the 1960s, Afflerbach writes, mod
Table of ContentsPreface: What We Talk about When We Talk about Liberalism
Introduction: Making Liberalism New
Part 1: A Liberal Modernism
1. Liberalism Incorporated: Intellectuals, Abortion, and the Critique of Possessive Individualism
2. Racial Liberalism: Native Son and the Problem of "Color-Blind" Law
Part 2: A Modern Liberalism
3. The Inward Turn: Tragedy, Documentary, and the Making of the Postwar Liberal Imagination
4. Ending in Style: JFK, Nabokov, and the Triumph of a Liberal Aesthetic
Conclusion: What's Left of Liberalism? (Or: What's So New about Neoliberalism?)
Works Cited
Notes
Index
