The anatomy of antiliberalism

The term liberal may summon up permissiveness, materialism, rootlessness, skepticism, relativism run rampant.

How has liberalism, the democratic ideal, come to be a dirty word?

This book shows us what antiliberalism means in the modern world - where it comes from, whom it serves, and why it speaks with such an ever changing voice.

Stephen Holmes uses the tools of the political theorist and the intellectual historian to expose the philosophical underpinnings of antiliberalism in its nonmarxist guise.

Examining the works of some of liberalism's severest critics - including Maistre, Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss and Alasdair Macintyre - Holmes provides, in effect, a reader's guide to antiliberal culture.