Bleak Liberalism Author:Amanda Anderson Why is liberalism so easily dismissed by thinkers on both the left and the right? To radicals on the left calling for wholesale transformation and conservatives claiming a monopoly on ?realistic? conceptions of humanity, liberalism?s assured progressivism can seem like thin gruel. By these accounts, liberalism fails to register the complexities ... more »of lived experience or to speak to the need for meaningful forms of belief and affiliation. Amanda Anderson?s study makes the case for a renewed understanding of the liberal tradition, demonstrating that liberalism has more complex attitudes and objectives than the conventional contrasts admit. Throughout its history, she argues, liberalism has engaged sober and even stark views of historical development, political dynamics, and human and social psychology. Anderson draws on a wide range of political thinkers, from John Stuart Mill to Judith N. Shklar, but emphasizes the ways in which literature reflects the ambitions and difficulties facing liberalism. Her discussion encompasses canonical works of high realism such as Dickens?s Bleak House as well as political novels from England and the United States and key modernist novels that dramatize the struggles over liberalism in striking ways.