Overview

Why is liberalism so often dismissed by thinkers from both the left and the right? To those calling for wholesale transformation or claiming a monopoly on “realistic” conceptions of humanity, liberalism’s assured progressivism can seem hard to swallow. Bleak Liberalism makes the case for a renewed understanding of the liberal tradition, showing that it is much more attuned to the complexity of political life than conventional accounts have acknowledged. Amanda Anderson examines canonical works of high realism, political novels from England and the United States, and modernist works to argue that liberalism has engaged sober and even stark views of historical development, political dynamics, and human and social psychology. From Charles Dickens’s Bleak House and Hard Times to E. M. Forster’s Howards End to Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, this literature demonstrates that liberalism has inventive ways of balancing sociological critique and moral aspiration. A deft blend of intellectual history and literary analysis, Bleak Liberalism reveals a richer understanding of one of the most important political ideologies of the modern era.

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I wholeheartedly recommend this book. Anderson turns to a combination of literary criticism and intellectual history to show how liberalism can accommodate and indeed is articulated in relation to a bleak view of history and society, that is, one which does not downplay the social and historical centrality of crisis, fluidity/unpredictability, and violence. <i>Bleak Liberalism</i> knows exactly what it wants to say, and what it wants to say is important and will interest many. --Simon During, author of Against Democracy: Literary Experience in the Era of Emancipations

On the academic left, liberalism is routinely associated with the evils of possessive individualism, free markets, and the system of New World slavery: it is as if all liberals are really neoliberals. Bleak Liberalism is a bracing reminder of the often-overlooked complexities and tensions in the liberal intellectual tradition--in the work of Victorian reformers, modern skeptics, and Cold War anticommunists. But more than that, it is a worthy successor to Lionel Trilling's The Liberal Imagination, delineating a robust and expansive liberal aesthetic in the history of the novel. This book is a major work of literary and cultural criticism. --Michael B rub , author of What's Liberal about the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and Bias in Higher Education I wholeheartedly recommend this book. Anderson turns to a combination of literary criticism and intellectual history to show how liberalism can accommodate--and indeed is articulated in relation to--a 'bleak' view of history and society, that is, one which does not downplay the social and historical centrality of crisis, fluidity/unpredictability, and violence. Bleak Liberalism knows exactly what it wants to say, and what it wants to say is important and will interest many. --Simon During, author of Against Democracy: Literary Experience in the Era of Emancipations Anderson's bold, sharply edged argumentation throws down the gauntlet against misunderstandings of liberalism by the right and the left. Adorno is strikingly juxtaposed to Trilling and Ralph Ellison to Doris Lessing, all against the backdrop of Anderson's powerful revaluation of the aesthetics and politics of major Victorian novels. An incisive rethinking of realism and modernism, the political and the aesthetic, and the labels radical, liberal, neoliberal. --John Brenkman, author of The Cultural Contradictions of Democracy: Political Thought since September 11 How does liberalism relate to literature? Amanda Anderson sets us straight on a much abused word by teasing out liberalism's complex entanglement with literary history and literary form. Her book is a triumph of analytical precision and careful description as well as a rebuttal of lazy thinking. Bleak Liberalism is a major contribution to literary theory and political theory that is sure to stimulate much discussion. --Rita Felski, author of The Limits of Critique

Author Information

Amanda Anderson is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities and English at Brown University. She is the author of several books, including, most recently, The Way We Argue Now: A Study in the Cultures of Theory.

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