Worlds of Liberalism

This essay analyses two outstanding recent books on the history of British Liberalism: H.S. Jones's “Liberal Worlds: James Bryce and the Democratic Intellect” and Jonathan Parry's “Liberalism.” The article connects these books to their authors' scholarly histories and shows how they offer nuanced, concrete portraits of liberalism, countering overly abstract or polemical accounts. Jones's biography captures both the uniqueness of James Bryce's career and the sense in which he was a quintessential Victorian liberal. It portrays him as a polymathic scholar and statesman, and as embodying civic republicanism, moral earnestness, Presbyterian voluntaryism, and a political philosophy that prioritised cultural cohesion and limited government. It examines Bryce's advocacy of secular universities, his championing of Christian moral unity, and his elitist reservations about mass democracy, among other topics. Parry's overview traces British political Liberalism from the nineteenth century onwards. He places opposition to concentrated power at the centre of the Liberal party's history. The book carries forward some of the central themes of Parry's scholarship on liberalism: its moralistic character, the importance of religion to it, and its complicated relationships to democracy and the state. The essay highlights how both books correct prevalent misconceptions about liberalism.