Swearing by Phrenology

John Vincent

  • An Intelligent Person's Guide to Liberalism by Conrad Russell
    Duckworth, 128 pp, £12.95, September 1999, ISBN 0 7156 2947 6

This is a rather relaxed book. As such, it may disappoint those who know the author through his brilliant contributions to early Stuart history, or his recent principled interventions in debate in the House of Lords. Its aim, a truly ambitious one, is to trace the continuities between the liberalism of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, and that of Liberal Democratic politics today. Indeed, Conrad Russell goes further than that; he not only makes a claim for continuity over a very long period, but maintains that this sprang from a common root in liberal political philosophy, especially that of Locke, Bentham and Mill.

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Vol. 22 No. 3 · 3 February 2000 » John Vincent » Swearing by Phrenology (print version)
pages 36-37 | 2560 words